Deck the halls

This year, Christmas is with a difference here in our household. After woefully failing to fulfill my child’s dreams of having a decorated house at Halloween,  I promised Sara we would go all out for Christmas. Mommy would do right by her. Mommy would Decorate, with a capital D.

I present to you, our tree.

For starters, we decided we would get a real tree this year and boy, was it the rightest thing to do. I love it. The smell of pine, the fullness of the tree, and yes, even the pine needles. It’s just gorgeous. It cost a fortune too, and I’m now worried all the needles will dry up and drop before Christmas Day, but hey, I take the good with the bad. I love the tree.

We had to get new decorations because this tree is a good two feet taller than our old fake tree. Also, our old fake tree had tacky lights and a feeble star permanently affixed to the tree, so we had to outfit everything for the new one. I struggled quite a bit with finding a star. There wasn’t any suitable that didn’t cost a fortune, so when I stumbled upon Ange’s idea, it was a pure eureka moment. Why buy a star when you can make a 3D snowflake?

Aside from the tree, I’ve also put up a small wooden toy nativity scene, tinsel for our front gate, a small happy wreath for the front door, and paper snowflakes pasted all over the windows around the house.

Ah yes, it is beginning to look like Christmas around here. Even in all this miserable pollution.