Christmastime Is Here

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here! The day after Thanksgiving, I hauled our little apartment-sized tree and our big box of decorations up from the basement.  We put on our Pandora Christmas music station, and we were ready to get to work.

We pulled the tree from the box, assembled it, and carefully fluffed the branches . We have one of those pre-lit trees which allows you to completely skip over that maddening light detangling step. It's a little lazy, but good grief is it easy. Next comes the strands of little red wooden balls which remind me of the dried cranberry garlands that we wrapped around my grandparents' tree when I was a little girl. Finally, out come the ornaments.

We start with the metallic, glittery glass balls to ensure that they are spread evenly around the tree. Next come the snowflakes. First the lace and then the sparkly variety. Then it's time to hang the odds and ends over the remainder of the tree. We have yet to acquire a tree topper (I swear I can never find one suited for a small tree -- they're all gigantic), so this year I used a little cross-stitched snowman ornament that I made a couple years ago. With that, the tree is finished!

In our entryway, I hung a garland around our faux-fireplace mantle, topped it with candles, and then hung our collection of Texas Capitol ornaments, one for each year since they began selling them. If only there was a real fire crackling in a real fireplace, it would be perfect! 

With that, our little home is ready for the Christmas season. May this time be filled with love, laughter, family, and friends for all of you.

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"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17