Ian's birthday falls between Christmas and New Years and since before he joined our lives we typically kept our Christmas tree up for the Catholic Christmas season. I didn't want to take down the tree so soon after Christmas but I also didn't want all of Ian's birthday pictures to include a Christmas tree. So the solution? A Birthday Tree!
We've been transforming our Christmas tree into Ian's Birthday tree the night before Ian's birthday ever since his 1st birthday. In recent years it seems like it has been the style to trim trees with colors that aren't typical for Christmas and so it has been easy to pick up birthday colored ornaments (bright greens, blues, purples, pinks, etc.). There has also been more fun decorations like multi colored sprigs and fun colored garland around during the Christmas season in past years.
One other way we make Ian's birthday special is that we include the countdown to his birthday in our Christmas countdown. If you look really closely there are actually 30 bags and not 25. So bags 26-30 have birthday stamps on them and he is able to open a big for each day in between Christmas and his birthday.
So even though it is hard to separate the Christmas holiday from Ian's birthday these are two ways we try to make his day special.
