Blogmas 2014 Day 17 My Christmas Tree

You've already seen them a couple times already.  ;-)

The top one is the tree at Cosmic Castle.  The presents under the tree are real presents.  They are from my youngest son.  One is supposed to be mine and the other for his girlfriend.  The tree is a little fiber optic tree and is really cute in the dark.

The bottom one (which was hard to get a picture of) is at the Lock Shop, and the presents under it are real as well.  Those are the presents I've made (you can see them all in my Crochet tag) and a special gift for the oldest and his finance, that only hubby and I know what it is. The only present that isn't under there is the mouse I crochet for the cat.  I have that hidden at home.   This  is the tree in the light show and other shop pictures I shared a few days ago.

Our tree has been put up at our shop (instead of home) since we first opened our storefront in 2003.  That was a fun year because the boys just thought they were empty boxes.  We have been saving boxes to put gifts in, and then those boxes got wrapped and put under the tree.  They were kinda down that year, but understood since we told them that opening a store was expensive and we probably wouldn't have Christmas presents, but would get them some things when we got our tax return back.  Were they ever confused when we told them to carry the boxes to the car when we closed on Christmas eve.

We are not big on lots of gifts either.  We give practical useful things.  you know, books they want to read, educational stuff, etc.  We have always done this.  We have been know to open boxes and wrap things separately on the years we just didn't have money to buy more than one or two things.  We would get 1 large gift for them to share, and  wrap parts  separately.  Now they are older, and harder to shop for, but they are always thankful for what they get. :-)

Joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom again today.  I have really enjoyed blogging along with her Blogmas 2014 and reading other's posts.  Thank you Sandra for hosting it.