A Christmas Tree, the Elves and a Dog

This 2011, our Christmas tree was decorated by our very own Christmas elves, together with a fake reindeer :-D

The started decorating the tree without their Christmas huts; but when I started playing Christmas music on the radio, they grabbed the huts. With the music and the huts, they seemed to have more fun trimming the tree.

The only help the girls needed was in adding the Christmas lights and the star on top of the tree.

The fake reindeer, our dog, Rikki, is seen here being disciplined by one of the elves. You see, this is the first time that a dog is celebrating Christmas with us. So we have to be careful that Rikki won't eat the trimmings; that she won't nibble on the figs; that she won't play with the tree; meaning we hope that that Rikki leaves the Christmas tree alone.


To keep our Christmas tree safe from our dog, we made sure that our Christmas tree is on a very stable Christmas tree stand. Also, the Christmas tree is very far away from our dog's usual place of activities.

And of course, we had to repeatedly tell Rikki that that part of the house is not for him. Rikki, Nein!!! It seems to work.

The tree's been standing for two weeks and we are hoping that it would remain standing until the season ends.

(Traditionally, Germans put up their Christmas trees around the 23rd of December but ours is always up before the birthday of MC which is on the 10th. The girls just love to have the decors earlier and my husband and I definitely agree with them.)

This is our Christmas tree 2011. It is a Nordmanntanne (Nordmann fir). The colorful Lametta (tinsel) and the various Christmas balls, angels, bells, birds, stars, Baby Jesus, Santa Claus, etc. hanging on our tree are from the Christmas collection of Oma and Opa which we used last year and have voted to use again this year.

Because for us, Christmas is celebrating memories, too. Memories of Christmas celebrated with our loved ones who are now gone; and those that are too far away from us.

And note that our Christmas tree doesn't have any gifts under the tree, yet! The Christkind (Child Christ) brings the gifts after the Christmas Eve mass. And always, secretly.

Merry Christmas to All!