I don't think that this picture really does our tree justice. It has turned out rather homey and charming this year, purely by accident.

Before kids(or in the years BK as I like to call them) we used white lights on our tree every year. Once we had children, we begrudgingly switched to the multi-colored lights in an effort to do what we thought would make it memorable for them. They definitely preferred all the splashes of color and upon being asked which we should do, would invariably choose the colorful lights. But, this year, as I untangled knots of green cords and light bulbs, I discovered that our colored lights were a mess. Three out of four strands only lit up halfway, and I could not see any missing bulbs at the root of this mysterious problem. I explained the problem and the boys relunctantly agreed that white lights would be "ok."

The gaudy, light-up star at the top of our tree is not nearly as pretty as the star we had before, but we had wanted one with lights to complete the tree.

It's not a "Martha Stewart" tree with coordinating ornaments and bows; it probably won't win any great, artistic prizes; but, it was done with love.