Decorating the Christmas Tree

This year Dawn and I will be celebrating our sixteenth Christmas together and our Christmas tree reminds us how far we have come and how much we have done since meeting that fateful day at the top of the Empire State Building in November 1996.  We also have some particularly important ornaments to commemorate those no longer with us, but who will be with us in spirit this Christmas, and for all future Christmases too. 

This ornament with a photo of Dad has adorned our tree for a couple of years now.  But this year it brought a little tear in the corner of my eye.  Last year we spent Christmas Day with him opening his presents at the Whittington Hospital.  We feared that it may be his last, but little did we expect that he would be gone three weeks later. Love you Dad.  You can enjoy Christmas this year up there with Mum and George.

We have many ornaments that remind us of Tiny.  Many have her name etched on with our names and a date, and some have a photo of her.  But this one of her in my arms is my favourite.  We took her with us on a trip to the Smoky Mountains and she just loved being in the car with us and, even more, racing around the hotel room and hiding in any cubby hole she could find.

 

As I mentioned, many of  our ornaments remind us of our time together.  This photo has captured a Scottish cushion we bought last year in Edinburgh, a wooden carving we picked up when we went to York to celebrate Dawn's 50th, an ornament with our three names on (the last we had with Tiny), and one we picked up this year when we were in New York - a cup with 'Dad' on it. 

  

This one doesn't do the tree justice.  The lights are a lot brighter than they appear and you can't see the countless ornaments around the back and on the inside branches.  However, I think it gives you an example of how our Christmas tree looks.  Each and every ornament has sentimental value, and each and every ornament reminds us how lucky have been and are to have each other.