The origin of the Christmas tree can be tracked very far back in history. As for back as 1510 is when the first decorated Christmas tree is believed to have been celebrated in Rigid, Latvia. The story is told that Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant movement, was walking the a forest in Rigid one evening when he came upon a beautiful fir tree that was glimmering in the night’s light. He was so moved by it’s beauty that he found a smaller tree and chopped it down. He then brought the smaller tree back to his home to share with his children. There inside his home he hung small candles from the tree to recreate the image of the moon and stars glimmering through the tree as he saw it in the forest. The first Christmas tree was then born.

The Christmas tree has always been a very valued piece among all of my family’s Christmas traditions. My f

Since the Christmas tree there was already decorated we had to find something else to decorate. With the company and of all my cousins, aunts, uncles, and the rest of my family we would create the biggest gingerbread house I ever remember seeing. With all of the icing, gumdrops and different assortments of candy, each kid had their own space on the gingerbread house to decorate in their own style. Using icing for snow and ice, and gumdrops for whatever we used them for, we created a very creative gingerbread house. Our parents made us let it sit and look pretty for a while before we could eat it, but by the next day you could tell nobody held up to that agreement. The gingerbread house looked a bit more skimpy than the day before. I remember waiting for every chance I got to go steal a little bit of candy and icing off of the gingerbread house. At the end of the next day, our parents just let us eat it since there was not much left of the gingerbread house anyway. Making the gingerbread house is a tradition that I will always remember.

Most of our Christmases were spent at home in Louisiana, but my first Christmases were spent in my dad’s hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania. Since I were born, until around the age of thirteen, we would travel every other year to the cold, white state of Pennsylvania to visit my dad’s parents, and spend Christmas with them. Those I would have to say were my favorite of all Christmases. We would always drive instead of flying so we could enjoy traveling through and see all of the beautiful countryside and mountains. When we would arrive twenty-two hours later, I remember seeing from the road, my grandparent’s Christmas tree standing in the window of the front room. I remember running up the basement stairs as fast I could to see my Grandparents. Christmas with them was a completely different experience all-together. For one main reason I was surrounded by snow. That gave everything that traditional Christmas feeling.

Shopping for a tree was kind of a drawn out experience for me. We

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