It's beginning to look a lot like..

Every year on Black Friday, after all of the shopping and craziness, I always set up our tree. We have an artificial tree, and yes we have storage for it in our apartment, believe it or not.

The first year (2005) we lived here, we bought a live tree from Lowe's, back when I worked there. Over the years there I had accumulated a lot of glass ornaments from there, since the discount was so good, especially during December (they always had a ton of specials for their employees).

After that first year, I vowed to never have a live tree again, because Dr. Wily tore it up, splashed water everywhere, and the tree was just sprinkled all throughout our apartment. Anyway, no more live trees. For now, anyway. Maybe once we're in a house with kids we'll try the live tree thing again. There's something heart warming about going out to the tree farm to get a live tree..

I really like our tree. It's pre-lit, just the right height, and just the right width. The tree topper is an origami star that Daniel folded with clear paper. I like it because the lights can shine through it and reflect off of it.

Here is a photo of our tree this year:



The ornaments we used this year are just about all glass balls. There are some from a wedding set Daniel's Aunt Georgia Anne & her husband Joe sent to us back a couple of years ago before our wedding. Then there are a couple of special ones that Daniel had growing up, and some I had growing up, as well as some that used to belong to my grandma Runyon.

Here are some photos of some of our ornaments:





I found the Jefferson Hotel ornament this year and bought it because it's one of my favorite places in downtown Richmond, and also since that's where Daniel & I spent our wedding night at. It's such a gorgeous building, inside and out.

On Sunday 11/29, Bonnie, Kristen, & I made our Christmas cards for this year. I am going to mail mine out on the 10th.
Kristen also got us some gingerbread house kits, so we put those together. It was really fun :)

here is a closeup of my gingerbread house:



And some of my grandma's vintage ornaments:



And a pyrex bowl full of ornaments, just for fun:




I hope that everyone is having a great start to the month of December. This is such a fun time of year, but it can also be stressful. I am looking forward to going home and checking my advent calendar. Usually Daniel puts a little origami piece inside there, so we'll see what we have today. I'll post about the advent calendar some more later this month.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I wish you a happy one, love, peace, and joy.