At my house in Belleville, the Christmas tree is themed from top to bottom. It should come as no surprise that the theme is sports.

I came up with the idea in my 30s — a Christmas tree dedicated to my five favorite teams. My mother, who lived to be 100 and died in 2021, didn’t think it was a very good idea.

“It’s not very Christmassy,” she told me.

Over time, she came around. In fact, she bought me an ornament almost every year after that.

My five favorite teams are the San Francisco Giants (baseball), San Francisco 49ers (football), Utah Jazz (basketball), UCLA (college basketball) and Penn State (college football). Many of the ornaments came from the Danbury Mint and Hallmark.

The easiest place to find team ornaments was State College, about 30 miles away. The only drawback is that I never found many ornaments featuring Joe Paterno.

Hallmark has produced plenty of individual player ornaments from my professional teams. The 49ers have had the most, including Steve Young, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana. The only new ornament I’ve added so far this year is Christian McCaffrey.

Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz also has a Hallmark ornament. From the Giants, I have Willie Mays — both fielding and hitting — along with Madison Bumgarner and Barry Bonds.

Because I’m not on the internet, I’ve relied on help from co-workers at PennDOT, The Sentinel, former college classmates and relatives to track down items for the tree.

Getting UCLA items was the hardest part. You had to send away for a “Bear Wear” catalog and hope what you ordered actually showed up.

But what’s on the tree is only part of the story. What’s under the tree is what really makes the Christmas season complete for me.

All five teams are represented. There’s a UCLA basketball still in its packaging, along with a Bruin Bear and a T-shirt honoring the John Wooden dynasty. From the 49ers, there’s a sweater, a scarf, a wooden mascot and a plastic set depicting “The Catch.”

Someone once said the three sweetest words on earth are “I love you.” If you’re a Jazz fan, the three sweetest words of the 1990s and early 2000s were “Stockton to Malone.”

John Stockton was the guard. Karl Malone was the finisher. I have bobbleheads of both to go along with a Jazz T-shirt, beanie and bookbag.

When I traveled to Salt Lake City in 2002 to see the Jazz play, I ended up sitting next to the team dentist. After one of the games, he gave me a Karl Malone sweatband, which now sits under the tree.

From the Giants, I have a Willie McCovey figurine I found at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. McCovey was always my favorite Giant.

I also have a Penn State snow globe that plays the school’s fight song. A friend gave it to me after his grandfather, a Penn State fan, died. My friend wasn’t much of a fan himself, so he knew it would mean more to me.

My mother died in July 2021 and in November of that same year I was cleaning out her closet and I found a bookbag from the Utah Jazz. I put that under the tree as it was her last gift to me.

For me, the tree isn’t just about sports. It’s about memories — and the people who helped me collect them over the years.

Every ornament and item under that tree tells a story. And every Christmas morning, it makes me feel like a kid again.

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Ray Wilde is a correspondent for the Sentinel and has contributed to the Sentinel for 50 years.