The best way to celebrate Christmas is to fill your home with lots of trees

Dec 14, 2012 | Holidays, In a People House | 7 comments

This is a big year for me. For the first time ever, I have my own house to decorate for Christmas! Last year we were in between homes (we were basically homeless) so I wasn’t able to decorate. I did insist we get a little Christmas tree anyway because it was our first married Christmas and it was so cute. This year I had big plans for DECORATIONS GALORE. When we finalized our Christmas plans and realized we’d be away for Christmas, we decided to keep things to a minimum. I wasn’t able to bring to life many of my Pinterest ideas, but there’s always next year to make a snowman out of wreaths!
Welcome to our living room, the place where Christmas exploded. (I just wrote “Christopher exploded” by accident. I’m happy to say that has not happened. Although, had I made all those Pinterest crafts he just might have ended up in a million pieces. MOVING ON.)
I made this Christmas sign one week when Christopher was working late. I hope it lasts for at least 12 years because that’s how long it will take me to recover from all that cutting. 
We set up the Nativity #1 on the bookcase in the kitchen. Two of the wise men didn’t fit with the other pieces (there’s a lot going on in this nativity what with the sheep, people getting water from wells, unknown characters with huge bags on their backs, etc.etc.etc), so we put them one shelf up to make it seem like they’re traveling to see Jesus. I think it’s very biblical. Either that or they were just late to the party because they stopped to read  The Story of Wine, the book they’re sitting on. Somehow that seems slightly less biblical.
Grandma gave me this nativity last year. She couldn’t find the correct baby Jesus so she gave me a Jesus from a different nativity set. Look how huge this baby is. He’s practically bigger than Mary and Joseph. 
A few more decorations we have around the living room. I made the little people decorations after the first Army ball we went to together. (The clothes are accurate, but the extreme roundness is not.) Nativity #2 came from Christopher’s parents. Jesus is the correct size .
 
We have no mantle or staircase to hang them on, so the stocking were hung on the windowsill with care. The pumpkinman stands besides them, keeping an eye over the proceedings. 
If I was impressed with how well the people decorations turned out, than I was BLOWN AWAY with our gingerbread house. Never in my life has a gingerbread house looked anything like a house when it was finished. I might keep it forever because like the Christmas sign, it will probably never happen again.
We have two three trees this year. A fake tree, a was-supposed-to-be-small real tree, and a Charlie Brown tree. I affectionately refer to it was The Forest In Our Living Room. 
This is our non-themed fake tree. For your viewing pleasure, I’ve included a picture of the tree at night and during the day. Or possibly I couldn’t decide which to put so I put both. 
We decided to do a red and gold theme for our real tree. I didn’t have an extra tree skirt so I used burlap. (It looks greenish but it’s the regular color.) 
We found some gaping holes on two sides after we set up the tree. (Obviously we didn’t do a thorough tree investigation before we bought it.) I attached little birds among the branches so it would look like we got a tree with holes for a reason.  
I love love love how our living room looks at night!
Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away 
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself…
~Norman Wesley Brooks~
Linking up with Kelly’s Christmas Tour of Homes.

because two just wasn’t enough

Dec 9, 2012 | Holidays | 4 comments

We were in Hobby Lobby today looking for a tree topper when we walked by a Charlie Brown tree. It reminded Christopher of the tree he had on his last deployment so we brought it home with us.
Now we have three Christmas trees.
The forest in our living room is growing by leaps and bounds. 

a tale of two trees

Dec 4, 2012 | Holidays, Love & Marriage | 3 comments

It was a very festive weekend ’round these parts. We put up our nativity, had pictures taken for our Christmas cards, and we got our Christmas trees. We have a regular size fake tree and a smaller real tree. I did want our big tree to be real, but we’ll be traveling for Christmas so we decided it would be easier to do a fake one this year.  
We went to Walmart to for the fake tree. I suggested these trees but Christopher wasn’t interested. I just don’t understand why. I thought they’d help us have a Klassy Khristmas.

After the pink, white, and purple trees were shot down we started looking at green trees. The tree we choose was sold out so we had to take the display tree. Walmart lost the tree box so we had to disassemble the tree in the aisle and wrap it in plastic wrap. And when I say we I really don’t mean I had anything to do with the disassembly. Someone had to stand in the way taking pictures.

I always dreamed of walking around a store with my husband while pushing a cart full of fake tree wrapped in plastic wrap. It was a romantic moment.

We left Wally World and meet Jenn at a Christmas parade downtown. Speaking of klassy, this float featured a HUGE roll of toilet paper.

On Sunday we went to buy our real tree. We had some miscommunication about how big the real tree would be. I thought we were getting a tiny table top one so it would be easy to take down before we leave, but Christopher thought…I’m not exactly sure what he thought, but it wasn’t the same thing I thought. That’s how we ended up with a tree that’s almost the same height as me. 

We basically have a forest in our living room.

We haven’t decorated the small tree yet because Christopher’s been working late, but we decorated the large tree Saturday night. 
There was a pretty tree under all that plastic wrap after all. 

except for an usual amount of coughing it was a quiet day

Nov 23, 2012 | Holidays | 4 comments

I feel like it would be extremely obvious to start off by saying, “Well, yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving.” 
So I won’t say that.
Wednesday night we drove up to Christopher’s parents in Mississippi. We played Let’s See Who Can Make a Cough Drop Last the Longest on the way up. That was probably a step down from the karaoke game we played on our last road trip, but we both came down with terrible colds so singing was out of the question. Nothing like ushering in the holiday season with a bottle of Robitussin in one hand and an economy pack of cough drops in the other!  
Despite being in a clariton/benadryal/sudafed/cough medicine induced haze, I insisted on spray painting pinecones gold and stopping at the Dollar Tree (clearly I shop at only high-end stores) for a few Thanksgiving decorations. 

It’s really not Thanksgiving until every dish you own is being used and the counters are packed.

I made my world famous, top secret recipe from the back of the Ocean Spray bag cranberry sauce.

To prepare ourselves for the meal, we all took a nap before eating. I’m a fan of naps whenever possible so naturally I didn’t complain. 

And that was Thanksgiving. Very quiet (I’ve never spent the day with so few people) and very nice.

You all have a lovely weekend. If you need me, I’ll be polishing off my bag of 80 cough drops.