Christmases Past

The holiday season is a great time to look back and take note of changes and growth. My husband and I are coming up on our 5th anniversary (since we started dating) so I thought it would be fun to pull pictures from each year we have been together to compare trees and living situations. 5 years seems like no time at all, and at the same time, forever. So here we go.

2011

Starting with this year... our tree, and our tree before we cut it down
(which is also our Christmas card pic this year). 

 

2010

This was our first year as a married couple on Christmas, and we didn't even have a tree - so I included the closest thing we had, a palm tree downtown Charleston that was decorated in lights. I found it ironic and charming - and our Christmas card pic from 2010 (below).

2009

This was our first Christmas in Charleston, and our first real Christmas tree. We had fun bringing Lola with us to the tree farm (which we had to drive 45 minutes into the country to get to) - we did not even have Lexi then. Our Christmas card was just Lola that year. Notice the weird needles on the tree. They do not have "normal" Christmas trees you can cut down in South Carolina.

2008

This was our first fake Christmas tree, which we set up in T.J.'s apartment. This was also the year I made our Christmas stockings.

2007

In 2007, T.J. and I were living in our fraternity and sorority houses, so our tree this year belonged to Sigma Phi Epsilon. It was a pretty cool big tree though. And a ton of fun to decorate. His fraternity had my sorority over every year to make ornaments and spread holiday cheer. :-)

2006

Christmas of 2006 we weren't even officially dating, but we did go to a December semi-formal together and someone snapped this picture in front of the Sig Ep tree. It isn't one of my favorites, but it is pretty cool that we have a picture from Christmastime that year. We look so incredibly different! Look at that boy's tie/shirt/cuff combo!

I think our tree this year takes the cake, mostly because it is in our very own house. It's kind of funny how we can mark time just by looking back at pictures and memories of what our lives were like at different Christmases. Time flies, make sure to take a few minutes this Christmas to remember where you have been - wait until New Years to focus on where you will go next.