Holiday seeeeason

So, Thanksgiving was awesome, in a relaxing and low-key kind of way. The flying was easy (helped by our decision to travel on unpopular travel days, as well as Southwest's direct flight from Denver to North Carolina), it was great to see my parents, the meal was delicious, and the four days off of work were luxurious.

And NOW. Well, Thanksgiving is over and that means Christmas! Our first one in our new house. This is our third Christmas living together, and therefore the third time we've gotten a Christmas tree together, but this year we really pushed the boat out and also invested in a wreath for our door AND outdoor lights for our bushes.

And first of all, the wreath? We bought one of those $2 wreath hangers, and put it on our door, and were happy to see that it fit, but then when we hung the wreath on it we realized that the hanger was way too short, and the wreath was way too high up on the door. But I felt very crafty and creative because I took the twine we used to tie our Christmas tree to our car and tied it to the wreath hook and to the wreath and managed to hang the wreath just high enough to hide the twine, but still reasonably low. Behold:


And, um, I think I might wait on showing you the Christmas lights, because... well, it turns out that you need a lot more lights than you think you need to cover a couple of bushes. First we tried those net lights, but the claims on the box that there were enough lights to cover a six-foot shrub were blatantly false--one net literally only covered a fifth of the bush, and we have two bushes to light.

So, those went back to the store in favor of regular light strings, but of course we managed to inadvertently buy garland lights, which are really short strings with clusters of lights, so basically NOT what we needed, at all. We didn't really feel like a THIRD trip to Home Depot yesterday, so we just put the lights we did have on one of the bushes and left it at that. We still have part of one bush and all of the other one to cover before those will be ready for photographing. Unfortunately.

Anyway, onto the tree. Our ceilings aren't particularly high, but we got a bigger tree this year than we've had in past years, and actually invested in a tree topper for the first time. Again, as with last year, we decorated the tree with a football game on in the background, and again we forgot to get eggnog to commemorate the occasion.

However, we did manage to get the tree up and decorated. Growing up, Torsten always had a very traditional tree with white lights and just a few ornaments, while I had a crazy tree with multicolored lights and ornaments crammed on every branch. So, we have compromised with something of a middle ground: white lights, and colored ornaments, but only a few different colors (red, purple, silver, and a bit of gold) in order for the tree to have a cohesive feel. We're both happy with how it turned out:


It's a little weird to have set up the Christmas tree without Montana here. I kind of wonder what her reaction will be when we bring her home this week and she sees a giant tree in our living room. I can only hope that she doesn't instinctively decide to pee on it.

AND, in what can only be described as a true holiday miracle, we actually managed to find a menorah that we both like, and it only cost $25 and it's excellent quality silver (steel?). It is a lovely compromise between traditional (Torsten's preference) and modern (my preference). See?


Now all we need is an advent calendar with chocolate, and we'll be set for the season.

What about you? Will you be getting a tree this year, or have you already? How do you normally decorate it?