Joanna Gaines is getting in the holiday spirit with her youngest.
On Friday, the Fixer Upper star, 43, shared photos on Instagram showing herself and 3-year-old son Crew decorating a Christmas tree that lit up the room. The mother-son pair stood on stools as they placed ornaments on the tall tree.
In the caption, Joanna called it “Crew’s Tree” and wrote why it was time to install a tree, “It was 54 degrees today so….”
Gaines previously expressed her sentiment for upholding holiday traditions year after year.
“It’s rare for me to get excited about a new holiday recipe or trendy ideas for decorating the tree,” Gaines wrote in a 2018 essay. “I’m not looking for ways to reinvent this season. Instead, all I want is to gather the same ingredients for the same beloved cinnamon rolls that I’ve baked on Christmas morning for as long as I can remember.”
Gaines explained that she adorns her tree with ornaments that commemorate important memories from her family’s lives. Some of those highlight her children — Drake, 17, Ella Rose, 15, Duke, 13, Emmie Kay, 11, and Crew, whom she shares with husband Chip — including their first Christmases and first lost tooth.
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“I want to decorate our tree with our same ornaments that we ooh and ahh over each year,” she wrote at the time. “Our tree could never be complete without the kids’ handmade offerings. And while the Popsicle-stick picture frames have cracked over the years and the photos within them have faded, it only makes me love them all the more.”
She added about her family’s passion for the holidays: “We count down the days, just to experience it nearly exactly as we always have. It is so comfortable, familiar and perfectly nostalgic that, frankly, we have no desire to improve upon it at all.”
In November 2020, Joanna told PEOPLE that even though she’s constantly busy with family and running their Magnolia lifestyle empire, she still has never had more energy. “I feel younger than ever because I now see the world like Crew sees it,” she said at the time. “I’m very thankful.”
“When your kids get older, you start adjusting the way you parent,” added Joanna. “But when you have a toddler, it’s so different. You almost have to see the world in the way that they do.”
“When Crew is in the car with me,” she continued, “it’s always, ‘I see a sun, I see a tractor, I see a boat.’ He’s finding the simplest things, and in his mind it’s an amazing discovery, but to us it’s just stuff. When you look at things through the eyes of your children, it brings you back to that place of awe and wonder.”
