If your Christmas tree is a perfectly-shaped, fake evergreen garnished with gold, silver and magenta, and decorated within an inch of its perfect life, this blog is not for you.

(This is like the supermodels of Christmas trees. My tree has a self-esteem problem next to this glorious creation.)

Our family’s Christmas tree is the perfect example of hilarious imperfection. It all starts with a freezing trip to the tree lot to find the pine tree that best suits our family: half-dead, a little bent and losing its needles. We strap it to the car and take it home where we plop it in a magical water/sprite mixture and wait for it to die.

There is no “theme” for our tree, unless that theme would be “Salvation Army.” We have pictures, homemade ornaments from decades past, silk (fraying) bulbs, stuff I don’t recognize and new ornaments every year. These are some of my favorites:

Pig Angel: I made this beautiful creature in Girl Scouts when I was about 10. My brother thought it was a pig. Stupid brother. The name has stuck ever since. It’s become a family heirloom (that no one wants).

(“Pig Angels We Have Heard on High”)

Cartoon Characters: Tastes change. Kids grow up. There used to be Barbie doll ornaments, Disney characters and cute little mice with dollhouses. Now, it’s a South Park Christmas.

(“Hark, hear the bells/Sweet silver bells/ All seem to say, “Ding dong, M’kay.” I KNOW Mr. Mackey sings that, not Cartman. But I don’t have a Mr. Mackey ornament. So shut up, all  you South Park purists.)

Photos: School pictures framed in the belly of Christmas characters. Some pictures are funnier than others as we’ve gone through missing teeth, 90s hair, goofy smiles and funky clothes. (My kids refuse to acknowledge these photos.)

(That’s my daughter about 12 years ago. She’s the one without the red hat.)

Homemade Treasures: We have clothespin reindeer, painted plaster puppies, cross-stitched candles and styrofoam drums. (By the way, what do drums have to do with Christmas? Is it representative of banging my head against the wall?) Amongst the homemade Christmas decor, we have this little angel:

(This is named after a former neighbor–Esmerelda. This is what Esmerelda would like like if she’d been hit by a bus on Christmas morning.)

If my Christmas tree depresses you,  take heart. In just a few weeks all these precious ornaments will be stacked back into their coffee cans to wait for another holiday season.