Our Chirstmas Tree is Up!

 

This weekend we spent an evening putting up our tree. Chuck thought it was early, I guess in his family it goes up a few days before and goes down a few days after Christmas. I seemed to recall one year when he stayed home for the holidays, it was already down by the time I got back from visiting my family, only a few days after Christmas! In my mind it's supposed to go up shortly after Thanksgiving and down shortly after New Year's. 

We don't have a large tree or a ton of ornaments. When we moved out to Seattle in 2004 I didn't take family Christmas decorations with me, although my parents offered. As a result they have a ton of ornaments to deal with every year, so I feel a little bad about that, but I like going home and seeing them all together.  I wanted to start my own collection, and this year I realized even in just a few years they can still bring up plenty of good memories. 

 

We have a fake, apartment sized Martha Stewart Tree, with integrated lights. Back in 2004 I bought some simple (Martha again) blue & silver ornaments to fill it out. I still like and use those to give it an overall consistency. Now there's a variety of ornaments, some store-bought (I had to have those weird cocktail party kitties, I think they are awesome. They were from Fireworks in Seattle. I like them so much that when I broke one of their spindly legs the first year I had to go back out to replace it. Now I'm always extra careful with them.) Some were gifts from family, some are handmade by me, and I have two from an EtsyRain ornament exchange that always make me smile! (by Norik and WovenChains, pictured on the right above)  I could still use a tree topper (it's pretty hard to find a good one for a smaller tree like this, I've found) and a skirt. I have the idea that I might make myself an owl tree topper this year, but I haven't figured out how I want to do it yet. I'll be sure to post pictures if I figure it out.

Anyway, while we were putting up the tree I put on my free flashy pin from the tree lighting ceremony, we had some Obsidian Stout, and I put on the Sufjan Stevens Christmas Album. That and the Squirel Nut Zippers Christmas album are my favorites. It made for a fun evening! And I think the cat is pretty indifferent to the tree this year.