Tale of Christmases Past

I bought my Christmas tree 5 years ago, in 2004. It was $14.77 at WalMart. You can't even buy a tree for that much anymore!

I bought two small rolls of gold ribbon from the dollar store and 2 boxes of ball-ornaments.

If you haven't realized yet, I didn't make much money! I think my paychecks were $42 every two weeks. I remember adding up things as I bought them to make sure I didn't spend too much.

That tree has been with me every Christmas since and has grown into something quite beautiful.

For now, we'll start out with pictures from the tree's debut year. I'll post pictures from subsequent years over the next few days.

It was Thanksgiving (notice the Macy's day parade on our little TV) and I was on-call in the dorms. I took these pictures right before I walked over to our community Thanksgiving dinner.