Christmas Decorating - The Tree

So do you like what I did outside?  I know I could do more, but work with me here.  Do you know how expensive some of this stuff is?


So now it's time to move on inside.  I haven't yet gotten the knack of spreading the Christmas cheer around the house.  It's mostly centered around the fireplace.

Evey year I flip flop on whether to get a fake tree and every year I decide to go real.  There's something wonderful about the tradition of going to pick one out (even if it's just to Home Depot), putting it up, arguing about if it's straight, trying to figure out what the best side is, all that.  And the smell, of course, the smell.  One of the problems with real trees though is the gaps.  Sometimes there are gaps where you can't hang ornaments because the branches are too weak or in the wrong configuration.  I solve that problem by sticking a large sparkly flower in the gap.

We usually go just with white lights on the tree.  And if Eric had his way that's what we'd have done this year. Luckily Eric was busy doing something else while I strung the lights and I snuck a strand of colored lights in with the white.  I like how it turned out.

Growing up we always used that silver garland.  I loved it, but I've never put it on a tree of mine since I've been out of the house.  I started with replacing garland with a silver kind of sparkly ribbon.  Last year I tried beads and went with that this year too.  Maybe next year I'll do both!

I know a lot of people like to go with the pretty, color coordinated tree.  I have never been able to do that.  I have too many mismatched ornaments that I love too much.  Here are some of my favorites.

L2R:  A beautiful ornament my sister got me from Harrods, an early predictor of my unicorn love, a reminder of where Eric and I got married

 We moved very close to Mount Vernon (We live on what was good ol' George's property) in 2008, so we have the 2008 commemorative ornament.

I love to get an ornament from just about every place I go.  Here is one from London with San Francisco below.  Sadly a lot of really cool places have really crappy ornaments.

 Just a plain old Hallmark ornament I got from my mom in high school, but I love it.

 I always try to put this one in front of a light so it looks like the fireplace is working.  I got this one in Dublin

 My dad made this one for me when I was a little girl.

I don't ride western and it's not sparkly, but I love this one.

A cherished favorite.  Believe it or not it's hard to find ornaments in Thailand so when I saw this at the Renaissance Festival the year Eric and I went on our honeymoon in Thailand when I hung out with an elephant named Nina on a daily basis, I had to get it as my remembrance for that unforgettable trip.