Friday, December 7, 2012

Guest Post with Sabrina Jeffries + giveaway (open INT)


*Squee* Sabrina Jeffries is on the blog yall! How neat is that? One of my friends introduced me to her books earlier this year and I fell head over heels for them. Only to find out she's a local to me NC author! Even better! Her newest release, 'Twas the Night After Christsmas, was phenomenal. 

Yall please help me give Sabrina a warm welcome. She's got a great guest post today about...Christmas trees :) You can even check out some of hers! There's an awesome giveaway way down at the bottom too!

~~~*~~*~~~

Pierce Waverly, the Earl of Devonmont, has been estranged from his mother for most of his life. When his mother’s new companion, Mrs. Camilla Stuart, writes to tell him that his mother is seriously ill, he goes home. 

But when he learns that the lovely widow tricked him in order to effect a holiday reconciliation, he refuses to stay—unless she meets his “terms.” Somewhere between trying to seduce the beautiful Camilla and struggling with the cruel memories of his childhood Christmases, Pierce discovers that not only does forgiveness go two ways, but that love can blossom even in the coldest of winters.


Get Your Copy



Oh, Tannenbaum

I really like Christmas trees. I have six—the large traditional tree in our living room, two 2 ft. trees, a 1 ft. tree, and an 8-inch tree, but the big deal is my 6 ft. white feather tree decorated with fashion ornaments and garlanded with feather boas. One of the others is done all in country-style ornaments. I guess you would call those “theme trees.”



The theme trees are upstairs in my office area, because, well, I like them and because hubby’s not keen on theme trees. He likes the eclectic look–bunches of ornaments collected through the years that have sentimental significance. I like that, too. But this way I get to have the best of both worlds.

So when I wanted to write a Christmas book, I had to include some tree, whether theme or otherwise. But here’s the strange thing about Christmas trees—the custom did NOT begin in England, but in Germany (hence the Tannenbaum connection). It came to England with the Hanover kings and their wives, who were German. The custom didn’t really take hold until the Victorian age. Which makes it hard to put a Christmas tree in a late Regency romance . . .

That’s why I cheated and made my hero’s mother be half-German. I had to have a Christmas tree, whether they were common or not! I made her tree pretty typical for the time, though—candles, glass baubles, nuts, and fruit as decorations.

These days, however, we can all go crazy, the way I do. Do you go all out when decorating your tree(s)?

Here’s a quickie quiz to assess your tree preferences:
  • Artificial or real?
  • Theme tree, eclectic tree, or both?
  • White lights or colored? Twinkling or not twinkling? (Does anybody use those “chasing lights”? Those drive me nuts.)
  • How many decorated trees do you have inside?
  • How many outside?
  • Placed in the window for all to see or kept just for you and the family?
  • Decorated by you, you and spouse, you and spouse and kids, or someone else entirely?
  • Ornaments piled on or tastefully placed? (Take a wild guess which one I am.)
  • Icicles or no icicles?
Whatever your preferences, happy decorating! Now, off to trim yet another tree . . . .
                                                            ~Sabrina Jeffries



At the tender age of twelve, Sabrina Jeffries decided she wanted to be a romance writer. It took her eighteen more years and a boring stint in graduate school to sell her first book, but now her sexy and humorous Regency-set historicals routinely land on the USA Today and New York Times lists. They’ve also won several awards, from the Booksellers’ Best to the Maggie Award for Excellence.
Her current series, the School for Heiresses, features the spirited graduates of Mrs. Harris’s School for Young Ladies, unconventional heiresses who prove a match for society’s most irresistible rogues.
Sabrina lives in North Carolina with her husband and son, where she writes full-time. 


Sabrina is giving away a hardback copy of her newest release 'Twas the Night After Christmas!!
Open INT
Just fill out that Rafflecopter and answer her question :)


66 comments:

  1. Yes! My family has a tree-decorating party with tons of sweets, and my brother and I buy an ornament every year, so the collection is always growing and changing.

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  2. I love decorating the Christmas tree! We make a whole day of it. Homemade cookies, hot cocoa, and music! Sometimes we also hand craft new ornaments for the tree. I crochet our garland with "tinsel" handing from it :-) I lvoe doings arts and crafts type stuff. Granted I am a stay-at-home mom so I have the time to come up with all this wild stuff lol

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    1. What a fabulous idea--to crochet the garland with tinsel hanging from it! I'd love to see that. I used to crochet, too.

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  3. We have a artificial quarter tree which we now leave up all year long in a corner for all the family to see (That way it's a reminder of what to look forward to). We don't leave the ornaments up on it but do leave the twinkling lights on. Then when we get closer to Christmas we start putting on the ornaments and tinsel. Since it's a much smaller tree (only one-fourth the size) than we used to have, we alternate ornaments each year with new and old favorites.
    ivegotmail8889(at)yahoo(dot)com

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    1. That sounds like fun. And if you wanted, you could do seasonal ornaments for other seasons. I know some people do that.

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  4. i'm not christian so i don't do christmas...:)
    thx u for the giveaway..

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  5. I wish i could have a tree, but it´s a combination of cats, dogs and that the tree kills my hoyas *sulks* i never forget the last time we had a tree and my favorite hoya (Deikeii) died of the fumes. =/
    One year, i´ll have a tree again, love the smell of tree, but until then i´ll just love the pic´s posted on internet.
    Thanks for the giveaway & for keeping it International, =)
    //Linda

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  6. The christmas tree is really important for me however since we live in the city without a garden and that we have a fire since i'm a baby it's the same artificial one ( no need to kill one for a day or two^^) we decorate it with the ornement we have from my grand parents, parent and some i bought with my brother and while we decorate it we sharing memories of family's members

    i love the peaceful time the decoration represent and i always hope to have a lot of gifts under it ( so i'm doing those so i can have boxes of severals size, wrapping of differents colors etc)( even if lot of boxes can be empty ^^;;)

    thank you a lot for opening your giveaway to international

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  7. We have a large family and we love Christmas. The tree is one of our fave parts about Christmas. Our tree goes up on Black Friday. No shopping for us :) Each year the children make a homemade ornament for the tree. This is what we use to decorate the tree with because we use very few of the traditional ornaments. We listen to Christmas songs, decorate and I usually make cookies for the occasion. We are all blissfully exhausted at the end of the day of decorating not only the tree but the house as well.

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    1. I have several of my autistic son's handmade ornaments on my tree, myself!

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  8. We love Christmas! Me and my sister and my mum usually decorate it, unfortunately me and my sister always fight on the style or on how stuff should be arranged, drives my mum nuts. We usually do it in one color, silver or red. I have another smaller tree that I put up in my room and last year was made up with silver and black, this year I am thinking of making it with cover flats, trading cards and stuff from my favorite authors :)

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    1. That sounds cool! I always think that a cover flat tree would be fun. I'll have to do that some year!

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  9. I just put up my tree last night. Usually I do it on black Friday but I just couldn't get in the mood this year. The weather has been too warm. I just can't enjoy putting up my Christmas tree while wearing shorts & flip-flops. It just ain't right. HA! But it's up now & I love my tree. It's all for my 12 year old son. Almost all of the ornaments are his. Ones he's made over the years or ones that were bought for him. Mostly the bought ones are Clemson Tigers & Jimmie Johnson (Nascar driver). He's a big fan of both so that's what our tree is decorated with. But my favorite ones are the ones he has made. They are precious to me.

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  10. Sorry! I forgot to say how much I love Sabrina Jeffries books. LOVE them! I know a lot of people are buying ebooks these days. I buy my fair share too. But there's a very short list of authors that I have to have the real book on my book shelf. Sabrina is one of them. She's a comfort read for me. And for me a comfort is holding a book in my hand. As much as I like my Kindle Fire & the convenience of it there's nothing like holding a real book.

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    1. Aw, thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoy the books.

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  11. I'm celebrate christmas but chinese new year sometimes we put the cherry blossom tree and hang some ornaments like mini angpao (red envelope), coins, god of fortune (all chinese stuff :))

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  12. we don't put up christmas tree, since my dad is really allergic to dust and a christmas tree is like a dust catcher

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  13. I love decorating the Christmas tree! I like my artificial tree to be very colorful!

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  14. It's an artificial tree that's put up at Christmas.

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  15. I can't stand the thought of chopping down a tree just to set it up for a few weeks (while it stands as a fire hazard), so I have an artificial tree that takes about three minutes to set up, including lights. (Unfortunately, it blocks my keeper book shelves.) I'd love to say that it came with twinkle-lights, but it didn't. I'm just happy to report that it wasn't on the "this model causes fires" mailing that QVC sent out a few weeks ago. Whew!

    I have an entire miniature Starfleet that I'll likely hang this year. The starships look so cute "shooting" at each other from behind boughs. Seems to me I've also got a Wonder Woman ornament or two that needs to go up. I haven't found a tree topper that really grabs my attention, but we still have time between now and the Solstice to find one. Or maybe that'll happen next year. Now that I am sans cats (sigh), I may even opt for silver icicles. (Cats can swallow those and get them entangled in their sweet little kitty guts.)

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    1. To be honest, Carol, I think the pre-lighted trees are over-rated. I have one, and after the first three years, the lights go out and then trouble-shooting them is more effort than just putting other lights on the tree. Next time I buy a new tree, it's NOT going to have lights already on it.

      My problem with silver icicles is they get everywhere! But then, I don't have cats. Sorry that you don't have yours anymore, though!

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  16. The tree is big deal in our family. We collect ornaments, esp the blown glass European ones. We switched to a fake tree and it makes life a lot easier.

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  17. The tree is big deal in our family. We collect ornaments, esp the blown glass European ones. We switched to a fake tree and it makes life a lot easier.

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  18. Artificial or real? Theme tree, eclectic tree, or both? - I actually have several trees. A large traditional in the living room, a kitchen tree (real) decorated with cookie cutters, a dinning room umbrella tree with crystal ornaments. My daughter has her own tree in her room with fairies and animal ornaments and my 16 year old son has his own tree decorated with German ornaments and nutcrackers.

    White lights or colored? Twinkling or not twinkling? (Does anybody use those “chasing lights”? Those drive me nuts.) - White lights outside. No twinkling. We are Bethlehem Pa. (the Christmas City) so the white lights are traditional Moravian.
    Inside the house is decorated with traditional colored (no LED I can't stand the harsh color)lights - non twinkling. Yes, chasing lights would drive me nuts.

    How many decorated trees do you have inside? - Five

    How many outside? - Two

    Placed in the window for all to see or kept just for you and the family? - In the window but drapes are drawn so it is cozy, just for us.

    Decorated by you, you and spouse, you and spouse and kids, or someone else entirely? - Decorated by me! :O)

    Ornaments piled on or tastefully placed? (Take a wild guess which one I am.)- Placed. Some are very old from Europe. They were my grandmothers.

    Icicles or no icicles? - Crystal icicles, now.

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    1. Sounds like a woman after my own heart! I have one for my son's room, too. He likes his little Christmas tree!

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  19. We cut down our tree from a tree farm every December. Decorations are mainly mine and my teens...every year from my first Christmas till I hit around 30 years, my grandparents gave me an ornament every year. My mom continued the tradition with my teen, so our tree is FULL. Hubby is 'allowed' to put on a couple of his from his childhood...LOL! So it's a full tree!

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  20. My tree preference: Real, eclectic, coloured, twinkling, just 1 large tree, in window, decorated by family, ornaments piled on, and perhaps too many icicles! Always have an angel on top. While some ornaments are from my own childhood, our family (my spouse, daughter, and myself) have a tradition of buying a single new ornament each per year, and we each choose independently, so it's quite a mix! This year new ones include a Capt. Jack Sparrow, an angel holding a heart, and a blue whale, lol. One of my sisters likes to send my husband a new Cowboys football ornament each year, lol. And because I like poinsettas, I have several silk ones stuck in the tree as well, so it's eclectic and colourful, I love it!

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  21. I prefer a classic beautiful tree. Last year I finally caved, and bought an artificial tree. No more half bold trees by the time it is Christmas for me! I decorate it myself with white lights, silver garlands, and then silver balls and ornaments. Only this year, I am going to add something typically American, those tiny sugar canes. I saw it somewhere else last year, and liked it.
    I do love and have all of your books Sabrina, I hope you will write at least 50 more :)

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    1. I plan to write books as long as y'all keep reading them! So glad you enjoy them.

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  22. we're getting up in age - fake tree - I prefer colored lights & whimsical oranmentsd
    mother prefers hidesous Martha Steart interior decorated SOULLESS tree
    yeah - we've compromised on your year - MY YEAR!

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  23. I'm trying to get the energy up to climb up in the attic & bring down the tree (yes - it is artificial). I got it last year - it has the white light permanently on it - checking & stringing those lights was the worst part of dressing the tree!. I have lots of cardinal ornaments because that was my fathers favorite bird & he had quite a collection - so I use red beaded garland to go with them.

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  24. I do love christmas trees... We have different themes each year... depending on what ornaments were on sale last yr!

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  25. I have an artificial tree this year. I do love real ones but I am the only one who ever puts the tree up and take it down. This year's theme is cowboys.. It's red and gold...
    kimberly_rocha@msn.com

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    1. LOL Love the cowboys theme!! Bet that's a real fun tree!

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  26. Ooooh yay Christmas trees!!! We only get one but it's always a real one, and our decorating style is definitely what you'd call eclectic (the result of too many little kids). I love having lights, especially coloured ones, and everyone tends to help decorate. We only have it indoors, and only for us. Thanks!!

    jessicamariesutton(at)msn(dot)com

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  27. My Christmas tree style is a table top, pre-lit (multi-colored lights) artificial with ornaments piled on until there's nowhere to put any more. :D

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  28. My Christmas tree style is: Artificial, only inside, colored and twinkling lights,
    kept just for me and the family/friends and decorated by me (no kids yet). Ornaments tastefully placed.

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  29. My tree is decked out this year with mostly bears - bearstones, cherised tedddies and Boyds bears.

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  30. I love Christmas trees, too, and have always loved to decorate them. While I prefer real trees, I long ago decided that the convenience of an artifical tree outweighed that preference. I wrap tons of lights all through the branches and around the trunk, so it sparkles like crazy (colored lights, only, and no twinkling. I have garlands of homemade (not by me!) hearts wrapped around the tree and a motley collection of ornaments (of which I have way more than will fit on the tree, 'cause I like to buy ornaments). This year, there are a lot of homemade ornaments on the bottom (so my 2-year-old grandson can't break them), and a lot of glass ornaments, ballarinas, and Disney princesses on the top part of the tree.

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  31. I'm not christian so i don't do christmas, but i always like to see Christmas trees on shop. To see ornaments and twinkling lights on Christmas trees.

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  32. My christmas tree, is small tree (well i think to change it), i decorate with red ribbon, ornament of santa, angels (love the angels), and the tree lamp.. oh and also christmas card.. Thanks for the giveaway

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  33. We used to have a tree each year but since we adopted our last cat, we found that first Christmas that Emory and trees do not mix! He would climb up in it and destroy everything so we haven't had a tree for the last three years. I miss it. Our trees had a variety of decorations, no one theme. A lot were decorations that I had made as a child.

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  34. I love live trees and we always had a live tree when I was a kid. The pine smell was awesome, not to mention finding pinecones on the tree. We had a live tree for a while after I got married. Now that we are getting older, we put up an artificial, its a beautiful 8ft flocked tree. We used to put up 2 trees, the artificial in the basement and a live tree in the living room. Now we only put the artificial up. Live trees have gone up in price. We put lots and lots of lights on the tree, multi colored, twinkling lights. We have 2 different style lights and last year, was the first year we put both on the tree. The twinkling lights are small and the others are golf ball size snowballs in multi colors. We got new tinsel, multicolored and use red beads. The ornaments are mostly handmade, either by me, my son from school years or bought at craft shows.

    luvfuzzzeeefaces at yahoo dot com

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    1. I just find live ones to be so much trouble, though I do like the smell.

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  35. We put up 3 trees and one kids tree- so I'd say its the most important Christmas decorating thing we do! I love Christmas ornaments, and collecting them is a family tradition. sdylion(at)gmail(dot)com

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  36. Oh I love Sabrina's writing! Please don't stop ;)
    Really, I don't like putting up decorations. My sister is the person who puts up the tree and the lights on the house. This year I made my own Christmas cards though.

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  37. I have a dog who seems not to understand the fact that is she no longer a "puppy" (95lbs boxer/great dane mix)
    I have learned to no longer decorate my tree with bulbs or anything could possible break cause she likes to lay under the tree & go to sleep... She careful when she lays down but when she wakes up the tree at times falls over...
    I decorate my tree with silk flowers (and petals) which gives the tree a Victorian feel
    I love your books :) Everyone is like a little treasure ...

    BeckeyWhiteATgmailDoTcom

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  38. This year we just have a small fake tree since everyone has gotten older and people are less likely to want to spend a lot of time decorating. I still think our small tree is nice though. We put multi-colored bulbs, along with chocolate ornaments and candy canes.

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  39. I don't have a tree this year, but I love looking at them :)

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  40. It sounds Grinch-ier than it is, but I don't put up a tree anymore. My son went off to school and it was more of a pain in the you-know-what than anything and I have a cat who lives to bat ornaments and strings of lights off of it. I did put it up this year and she jumped right into the center of it as soon as it was up and tipped the entire thing over. So no more trees for a long time.

    I adored 'Twas The Night After Christmas!

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  41. My mom is in charge of decorating the tree, I'm the schmuck that has to set it up and take it down. She chooses a color and that's what color she does the tree in. This year it's plum and gold.

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  42. I love Xmas trees! We used to do a real one every year..which I absolutely adore but is way too much trouble. With me having a fireplace, they are also a fire hazard so we finally got a fake one a couple years ago. I got a beautiful prelit 7 foot tree. I decorate it in different colors...red and gold or blue and silver and I have certain sentimental ornaments that my kids absolutely have to have on there. Usually, by Christmas though, you can barely see it! Lol! All in all, I think all Christmas trees are beautiful no matter how they are decorated.
    Nicole.nobles@aol.com

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  43. Our Christmas tree is full of family ornaments. It doesn't have a theme, just lots of memories.

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  44. I live in a small house with two packrats (both hubby and myself), so only room for one tree. Growing up, my mother was very asthmatic and allergic, so I have only ever had artificial and wouldn't know what to do with a real tree. But I love the control and stability I get from my fake tree, so have no desire to try for the real ones. I have a crazy collection of ornaments with all sorts of memories attached to them, plus some fancy ones that I love the look of added in that really makes my tree look insane. Add in the old multicolored, flashing lights like I grew up with, and it looks like a four generations attacked the tree at once, which almost happens some years when my sister's kids come over to 'help' me decorate while she shops. After all that, tinsel is just too much (the kids tried one year, and even they agreed before my cats thought we came up with a new toy for them...)
    Oh, it is put in front of my picture window, but we don't leave the blinds open or anything, so not sure if that counts as for just us or not?

    vickykerr(at)sbcglobal.net

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  45. Hi Sabrina!

    Christmas trees have always been a special part of celebrating the holidays in my family. My first "search for the perfect tree" started when I was just a toddler. We lived in up-state New York and my Dad would load my sisters and I into the station wagon for a trek to the woods to pick out the "perfect" tree! I can still remember the first time I was old enough to "pick" the tree and today it would be called a "Charlie Brown" tree but I loved it!
    Even when I was in Arizona going to college I had a real tree in my apartment! I think that it cost me 4 weeks of lunches to buy it!

    Fortunately after I married my husband who is from Connecticut and I had similar taste in just how a tree should be decorated so for 42 years we've always had colored lights on our one tree placed in front of the front window in our family room. Since we have about 3/4 acres of trees in our yard we don't decorate them but just let them sit in their snow covered bounty but the one inside is decorated by ornaments! When our sons were young their was never any "delicately" placed ornaments and our only rule was having the "delicate" ones from my husband and my childhood placed on the top of the tree (and out of little hands). We both were fortunate enough to get ornaments that have been in our families for years and when both our sons married they got to pick out several of those ornaments that now appear every year on their trees! The last thing I decorate the tree with every year are the silver icicles (but since he doesn't help my husband has to do the vacuuming after the holidays are over!).

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  46. Great post. I did not know any of the history of the Christmas tree. I only have a short 2' tree, small apartment and 2 cats makes anything more trouble. But I used to love the smell of the real tree we have a few years when I was growing up.

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  47. I decorate with colored lights, and all the ornaments I've been handed down and the new ones we get every year.

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I always enjoy hearing what YOU think so come on and leave a comment. Everyone's welcome :) And feel free to leave comments on old posts. I'll check in on you there too :)

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~Anna

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