Last year we purchased a real Christmas tree to decorate. Rick and I both grew up in Oregon and were accustomed to real trees, the wonderful smell, etc.

My children annihilated the tree and in a moment of frustration I picked up the entire tree and hurled it off the back porch. We then went to the store and purchased a smaller, cheaper fake free. "Here kids. If you ruin this one, oh well. You will have NO TREE at all, then."

The fake tree survived. This last Christmas we found a large fake tree at the thrift store for $25. Perfect! If they destroy it, we haven't lost 80 bucks. I decided to have both trees up and allow the kids to decorate a "kid tree" and they were instructed to leave the "grown-up tree" alone. For the most part, they actually listened to that direction and left our adult tree (and the more expensive ornaments) at peace.

When the time came to take the trees down my kids didn't want to part with the "kid tree." I thought for a while and then replied, "Okay. Perhaps we can turn this one into a Valentine's Day tree for now." We later agreed to decorate the tree for numerous holidays this year - a new family tradition. 

So... a year of tree decorating will now ensue.

First up we have our Valentine's Day tree!

I located a simple ornament recipe. The kids then made cut-outs with Courtney and painted them. (Don't pay attention to the cacti cut-outs. Februrary 14th is also the 100th birthday of Arizona and my husband asked us to make some decorations for that, also. The houses and cars were made at the request of my three year old son.)

I found these hilarious lip chip clips at the Dollar Store and purchased them to use as our tree toppers:

We taped our left over candy canes into heart shapes and I purchased some Christmas clearance items to use at 75% off: garland, red beads, etc.

Here is our first tree of the season, all decked out. We hung the heart ornaments with fishing wire and made a few paper chain-link decorations as well. I tossed in a little pink crepe paper and whallah - done! The entire tree cost me about $10.

Here's to our year of tree decorating!

What other trees may be coming in the future?

• St. Patrick's Day tree
• Easter tree
• Nanny-versary tree (the one year anniversary of Courtney coming to live with us) 
• Independence Day tree
• Back to school tree
• Birthday trees for each family member
• Thanksgiving tree
• Christmas tree

That will round out our "year of trees" I believe! Happy 2012.