On Saturday, December 3rd, Tucker and I brought a tree home and set it up in our living room - our first Christmas tree as married. On Sunday, December 18th, we finally finished decorating it.

We started some traditions last year, with our first and only engaged Christmas, like buying a real tree and putting the lights on together. I learned then that Christmas trees need to be watered…I’d never had a real tree before, so watering had never occurred to me. Luckily, Tucker has two green thumbs and saved Christmas. We also spent Christmas morning alone, just the two of us opening our gifts to each other and the lovely gifts my family mailed to us. Then we head to Tucker’s parents’ house to read Luke 2 and open gifts with the rest of the family. We’ll do these again every year, I hope.

This year, though, we realized something. Unless someone mentions it beforehand, like Tucker’s mom (Laurie) did, newlyweds don’t often think about their lack of an ornament collection until it comes time to decorate their tree. Thankfully, Laurie gave us some wonderful advice after we got engaged, complete with the gift of our first few ornaments that we would own together.

She told us anytime we went on a trip together, or visited somewhere new throughout the year, to buy an ornament commemorating the visit. She also encouraged us to add the dates/locations to the back of the ornaments, so that when you’re decorating at Christmas time, not only are you filling your tree with wonderful keepsakes and memories, but you also get to reminisce together about all the fun things you did together that year.

We took her advice and ended up with ornaments from the Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock, North Carolina; the Harrison Center for the Arts in Indianapolis, Indiana; the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida; and more from our favorite spots in Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain. With those ornaments, plus gifts from families for our engagement and wedding, we ended up with about 12 ornaments for our tree.

After adding them all, I filled in the blank spots of our 6ft spruce with candy canes and lights, thinking this was just about perfect for our first married Christmas.

To our surprise, more ornaments turned up.

Two weeks before Christmas, we received a package from my Nana with old ornaments she thought we would love to help fill out our tree - a crystal bell, a golden angel, a red Chinese lantern, and a tiny puzzle box to name a few. Then, my dear friends, Emma and Lizzy, invited me to a homemade ornament decorating party, where I made 4 more ornaments - two gingerbread men with a “T” and “K” on their chests, a tiny Christmas tree, and a tiny blue snowflake. And finally, a week before Christmas, Tucker’s mom Laurie gave us an “early Christmas” present with even more ornaments - a ceramic thistle to represent my job at Covenant College, a glittery Chantilceer rooster to represent Tucker’s recent role at the Chanticleer Inn, and some other old ornaments from Tucker’s childhood.

All these wonderful gifts filled our tree and home with so much joy. The older I get, the more and more I love Christmas. I’m grateful every day for the gift of Jesus Christ our Lord, but even more so around Christmas, when every little sparkling thing gives us the tiniest glimpse of his incredible grace.

Merry Christmas Eve, friends!