I’ve been away from posting for several weeks because after completing renos on our Texas house, and getting my Christmas baking done, we had visitors from Dec 30 until two days ago. I’ll expand more on that in another post.

Today, I’d like to tell you about our 2022 Christmas Tree. I know it’s late to post about this, but I decided to go with it anyways and use today’s post as a jumping board to get caught up on my blog posts.

If you’ve been following along on our journey to South Texas for the winter, you’ll know how packed our car was. We didn’t have room to bring our Christmas Tree and decorations and we decided we’d go without those things this past Christmas vs buying all new again. We figured one year without a decorated tree wouldn’t be the end of the world and we’ll have room in the car next year to bring those things.

I got busy and crafted a couple of decorations and we bought a poinsettia, plus there were a couple of decorations gifted by friends, so Christmas was definitely in the air.

When Canadian neighbours down the street heard that we didn’t have a tree, they generously gifted us with a pre-lit tree they weren’t using.

I was discussing with another friend about making decorations for it, and she generously gifted me a case of clear plastic crafting ornaments.

All of this kindness and generosity gave me an idea for the tree. It would be a friendship tree. I painted the ornaments white and tied red ribbon on each one. I designed and printed a star decoration for the centre of the tree.

As each visitor arrived over the Christmas season – whether it was to stay or to just bop over for a bit, I had them sign an ornament with the year and hang it on the tree which was on our back patio.

My feature photo is the end result. We’ll add more in years to come. In post processing, I added some warmth using the Snapseed accentuate filter, as the original appeared blown out with the lights and the white decorations.

“I think if I’ve learned anything about friendship, it’s to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don’t walk away, don’t be distracted, don’t be too busy or tired, don’t take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.”

Jon Katz