We found our tree yesterday. Tree getting and trimming was an event that was fraught with tension when I was growing up. My mother hated clutter and a Christmas tree involves heaps and mountains of clutter, giving up precious house space for something that will shed needles, tinsel and crumbs. Once her first grandchild became a teenager, she quit putting one up. We kids begged and begged to be like other families and put our tree up the first of December but she held firm for no earlier than 2 weeks before Christmas and it came down on New Years Day without fail. 
My house is smaller than hers was so I'm even stricter about putting a tree up too soon and I adhere to the Down on January 1dictum - but I love the tree - its glitter, its shimmer, its lights - and I am willing to do extra vacuuming for 2 weeks in December. In the early days I had to struggle with the desire to have a thematically decorated tree like you see in women's magazines. They're so stylish. My family adamantly refused to consider anything but our traditional family stuff and there came a day when I realized that our own eclectic hodge podge tree is the most wonderful. There are ornaments on it from the 1940's and 1950's that my mother-in-law gave me, there are the first things made by my son in Kindergarten and third grade that get packed in special tins so they don't crush or fade. There are pretty gifts from friends and some things I've bought myself. The top of the tree is decorated in the large colored glass things. The middle has all the intriguing pieces, like the little felt mouse babies, with seed bead eyes, all nestled in walnut shells, that my sister made one year - or the birds and Christmas fairies I bought from Missy when she still had her store. Each ornament in the middle of the tree is special. Everything along the bottom of it is unbreakable because I have 3 dogs with swishy tails. 
I was so tired after housecleaning, snowy woods traipsing, (we had to look a good while to find what we wanted) and decorating that I didn't exactly finish the tree - but I have all today to putter around with it. When I was absolutely too tired to do anything more, we just turned the lights down low and gazed at the colorful glittery holiday beauty. 
Some little dogs were tired too! As for any other holiday themed activity for today ... it shall be only knitting and movie watching. I'm tired. I really need a nap. And I've about wrapped everything. Thank heaven you can now buy different shaped boxes instead of just the jewelry box or the shirt box. Makes wrapping so much easier. I have succumbed to Last Minute Christmas Gift Knitting-itis - and am hurriedly trying to finish a pair of socks for BD - but I will do a few more rounds on my Soho Dress - just because I want to finish with the smocked section. Photos later on today or else tomorrow a.m.Ta.
I love your tree! I find the "thematically decorated" trees, while outwardly beautiful, to be inward cold and impersonal. Anyone, theoretically, could own one. Trees which are decorated with love, such as yours, can't be bought with money. They reflect a timeline of love through the years; a history of the family from the early years of the marriage and on into its maturity. Each ornament, as it is carefully placed on the tree, tells its own story of where it came from and who made/gave it. This, too, is my kind of tree!
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