As I grow older,

I’m realizing that I am in fact becoming my mother in many ways.

This could be a whole post, in-and-of-itself

{love you, Mom…. but never thought I’d turn into you – haha}!

Husby could probably give you a laundry list of funny similarities,

but one thing I’m noticing that has stood out this Christmas season is my love for our eclectic tree.

I have so many lovely friends who pull off perfect looking homes

that always seem tidy and organized

{girls…you know who you are – – and yes, I’m totally envious!}.

These same beautiful friends also have amazingly decorated and coordinated Christmas trees

{really they could be straight out of a magazine}!

Then…. there is our tree

{and my house, but let’s not go there – cringe!!}.

Our tree is real…. we haven’t decided to go artificial.

Just can’t imagine our house without the natural, woodsy, Noble Fir smell.

As a family we decorate our tree after I’ve spent an hour or two wrapping it

with what seems like endless amounts of white lights.

The kids enjoy pulling out their individual ornaments they’ve collected over the years.

Our tree is furnished with my own pieces from childhood….

even the one my mom painted and made by hand for my very first Christmas

nearly 35 years ago…

{holy wow… there is my age for you!!}.

Each year, my mom and I both buy {or rather, she craftily makes} our children an ornament

that represents them and their current likes and interests.

Our tree is adorned by all of those…

some homemade treasures from the kids…

along with cute, colorful, glittery filler ornaments that I find each year when we are out-and-about.

In addition, we try to buy an ornament on every trip.

It’s amazing… you can honestly find Christmas ornaments year-round.

We have Santa riding a dolphin from our honeymoon minimoon in Morro Bay over ten years ago,

and a very festive and bright one from our trip to Cancun this past summer.

To complete the look… we have an extremely sparkly, bejeweled star to top our tree

and quite a few strands of beaded {look-alike} cranberries.

This year, after thoroughly dressing our tree with our assorted mix of well-loved ornaments,

Sophia and I finished it off with the cranberry strands.

I started at the top, while she completed the bottom… all on her own.

I finished my half and asked her if she wanted to use the same strands

that I had to finish hers {so that maybe it would match – ??}.

She said she liked her big red cranberries and carefully continued working on her masterpiece.

When our tree was fully garlanded,

Sophia stood back and said,

“Mama…. It’s a crazy tree!! But I LOVE it!”

That’s all I needed to hear to be completely enchanted by it myself!

We have left the craziness and have even added a few more unique pieces

{if you can believe it}!

Our very creative Grandma made kitty ornaments with Sophia and Finn

to hang at the bottom of our tree filled with catnip, bells and feathers

{I think we’ve actually been lucky in that Pixie & Pearl haven’t scaled the tree yet!}.

I realized through this process that my tree does in fact resemble my mom’s from my growing up years…

I have indeed become her with respect to that {which warms my heart}….

and it looks like Miss Sophia Blue is taking to our eclectic style!