It’s no secret that I love Christmas trees and how people decorate them, I like to take the time to look at the ornaments and see what’s special to everyone. That very fact is what made me want to highlight the ones I liked the most this year, especially because they belong to people that are near and dear to my heart.

I’ll start with my own, because they are close by and I know them very well.

Tree #1 – Carolina’s tree

This is the “smallest” tree in the house and Carolina and I picked it out when we lived in our first apartments here in Austin. The living-room there was a bit small, so we picked this tree, pre-lit for easiness and we used to put it up on the table in the corner of the living-room so it looked much larger.  At the time the tree had a little bit of everything on it (non-breakable) so Carolina who was then 2 1/2 all through 4 years old wouldn’t break anything… So this tree with the nice history of mommy-daughter stories evolved to be just her tree when we moved into the house. It started out with taking all the stuffed animal sorts of ornaments, and characters, and each year we’ve added new characters she likes and it’s gotten more and more girly each year so as you can guess it’s become a pink and purple full with characters kind of tree, and we love it.

Tree #2 – Our Living-room tree

This tree was bought by Marco when he lived in his apartment, his living-room was a bit narrow, hence the narrow but tall features of this tree. We now place it in the corner of our living-room near the entrance area to the kitchen, it’s important for it to be narrow as otherwise it would occupy too much room.  This is the tree that is red and gold, no characters or special ornaments, the focus on this one is Christmas colors.Tree #3 – Our Foyer Tree

This is the tree that I like the most, it’s special to me because it has ornaments of all kinds, all colors and from all around the world. It has ornaments I made as a child, from family vacations, from special moments such as when we bought the house, 1st Christmases, ornaments from special trips and special ornaments I’ve received as presents throughout the years. Looking at this tree reminds me of special moments, places and people.

Tree #4 – The Castro’s “fun” tree

I call this one the fun tree because it has colored lights, lots of tinsel and is the kids favorite because it has a lot of things on it.

The first time I saw it, Pao proudly took me by the hand to come and see it, and as she explained why this tree was better than the other one, I could just tell that the sisters had a blast decorating this one, and that’s what made it so special. It just warmed my heart to hear her telling me about the special features of the tree.
Tree #5 – The Castro’s Foyer Tree

So in comparison to the their fun tree (above), this one is more formal or classic. I like that it has white lights and it’s color scheme is green, bronze and gold. But my favorite part of their tree is their handmade snowflakes, they are all beautiful and unique with their jewels.

Creativity always blooms in this family and that is one thing I love about them.

Tree #6 – The Requa’s Tree

One of my dearest friends from when I started living in Austin is my friend Danielle. She loves green, so of course her tree highlights her favorite color.

This year the tree is special as it’s in her beautiful new house so my favorite highlight is a hallmark ornament of a green house, that says “new home 2011” that her thoughtful husband Bob gave her for Christmas 🙂

Tree #7 – The Driskill Tree

This year Carolina is part of the older kids Choir and their special event around Christmas is to go sing Holiday songs at the Driskill hotel in dowtown Austin.

I don’t remember ever going to the Driskill in the holiday season, but it’s beautifully decorated. Their tree is impressive because it’s right in the middle of the foyer so you can see it from both entrances and it’s huge (you can’t miss it!). The ornaments, as the hotel, is very antique like, and for that reason I think it’s special.

It was hard to get a picture of the tree alone that day given that there were so many families there for the choir performances, but this is the best one we had.

Tree #8 – The school’s Tree

The 2nd Saturday of December, the school always has Pancake breakfast with Santa, and the choir sings and you take lots of pics, etc. They have a few trees that they put up every year, I in particular like this one with all the shiny ornaments. It’s not traditional Christmasy colors, but I like it because it’s shimmery and kid type colors which makes the school auditorium/cafeteria look bright and at the same time warm and cozy. It’s too bad that the decor is only up for this Saturday and not up for the whole 2 weeks that school is in session in December.

Tree #7 – The Rubio’s Tree

In comparison to the trees above, the Rubio’s family tree is real pine. It’s very bold with the colored lights and different color balls. My favorite thing about their tree is that they always hang candy canes from it, yummy starburst ones that on occasion I’ve been lucky to get one!

This year they have a special ornament that we brought them from our trip to Disney to mark a very important and special life milestone, their baby’s 1st Xmas 🙂
These are the collection of my favorite trees from 2011 Season.