Memories of childhood Christmas

When I was little the traditions at our house were few. We always went out to the country side around our home place one week "seven days" before Christmas day and searched for the perfect Ceder tree to bring home and decorate. These are the green ceder trees with the weak little limbs and most had two tops in them, which meant they had been cut a previous year and grown back with a split top! We usually got one way too big, because they look so much smaller out in the field, than when we get it through the door and standing in our 8 foot ceiling living room. After we finally found the "TREE" we would hammer it to a tree stand that held a small amount of water. We then got out the small box of glass ornaments and string of big lights, they were the size of the night lights only in all colors, not just white. We would put foil muffin cups around the lights and make it a lot brighter. We usually had fewer ornaments each year because they would break so easily. My favorite ornament was the glass candy cane that was stripe with red and white and silver, it was 5 inches and was the size of a real candy cane. We always had multi color lights on the tree. After all the balls and lights were on, we would get ready to put the final ta da's on, the silver icicles....Dad would just throw them at the tree and let them fall as they would, Mom would lay each little strip by hand across the branch, so we had this smooth-messy deco tree. We did have a lighted star for the top of the tree, it had a light on each point and was usually way too heavy to put on the little twig of a top so we would have to use something else. The house would smell so strong of the ceder it was stiflings, but not something we ever had any other time of the year. After one week the tree was so dry it was falling all over the floor and had a lot of sticker type stuff on the floor. During the week that followed we would see a few presents appear for Grandmammie, Papaw, Granny, and various others, but none for us. On Christmas morning in the cold cold morning, we would wake up and sneak into our parents room to wake them up and go turn the heater on. Then there it would be the 3 presents Santa brought. We never had a clue what we would get, so some Christ masses we were really surprised, like the year I got a bow and arrow set....a real one, not a toy kind...What do I do with this???? I would ask myself. We also always got a nylon stocking (mom's that had got a run in it. It would have an Orange in the toe, an apple in the heel and then mixed nuts in the shell would be poured in to fill out the stocking and a knot was tied in the top to keep everything in its place. It was always fun, we didn't know anything different to compare it to, so we were excited with what we got .....all three of the presents.