Jon’s Christmas Tree

Year after year, my favorite part of the holidays has always been the Christmas tree. With the pine tree smell filling my house, shiny ornaments, and bright lights, what's not to love?

For my whole life, I've always had a real tree. I refuse to have a fake. To me, it's worth the money every year.

I remember bringing the tree into the house, cutting the net to free the tree limbs, and decorating the tree, while my dog would run around knocking the ornaments off, breaking them. It was funny to me, because I didn't pay for them. We even used the same bulky metal tree stand each year.

Well, my favorite Christmas memory happened in 2012. It was my first year living in my own apartment with my girlfriend, Ember, and we were a little short on cash, like every other college kid.

We scrounged together enough money to buy the tree, and my mom let me take the traditional Faria family tree stand, rust and all. However, we didn't have enough to buy decorations.

I loved the smell, but a plain tree in our tiny studio apartment just wasn't good enough for me. So, we decided to make our own decorations.

Our paper ornaments included drawings of dinosaurs with Santa hats on, and even a few of my pet turtle, Ted. For the star at the top, I drew a Pterodactyl drawn on a paper snowflake.

It was silly, but it was special to us. Ember and I had struggled to make that Christmas happen, but we did it.

Today, we have the typical colorful lights, garland, and other store-bought items, but we still use those homemade dinosaur ornaments, and of course, our Ted the turtle decoration.