Decorating for Christmas

This Christmas feels almost like Greg and I's first real Christmas because we finally have a Christmas tree that was given to us by my godparents.  Last year I only put up some garland and ornaments on the mantel with our stockings, and it never felt quite like Christmas.  This year we have a tree, garland on the mantel, and more garland on the banister.  It was quite the project setting up the tree and placing decorations around the house.  That's why I will admit that we started the weekend before Thanksgiving, since putting up the tree was the last thing we wanted to do when we got home on Sunday.

The only thing I asked Greg to help me with was getting the tree up from the basement; however, he was pretty helpful in setting up the tree as well, but he left all the decorating to me. It was an entire family effort. Chase and Abby are all about new things whether it's a box from the basement or a new bag after shopping. They have to be around it and touch everything!

Since I knew we were going to get a Christmas tree last year, I was able to hit up all the Christmas sales after Christmas last year and get some ornaments and garland in order to make a blue, gold and silver themed tree.  The ornaments were really cheap, so that is why I didn't mind when Chase batted them around the house as I was tying the strings on them to hang them on the tree.  The ornaments on the tree were kind of sparse, so my Mom handed down more of her ornaments that matched the theme in order to fill in the gaps. 

The house definitely feels festive, and Greg and I turn on Christmas music every chance we get.  We suggest entering the Trans-Siberian Orchestra Holiday into a Pandora station for Christmas music.  The songs are really good and not the cheesy Christmas songs you hear on the radio that we get tired of so quickly.

The weather for this past weekend was in the 60's so it allowed Greg and I to put up some Christmas lights, and an excuse for Greg to use his ladder and his Z-wave!  The lights are hooked up to a Z-wave outlet, so Greg has them programmed to turn on and off at night.  It's very convenient.

We had a great weekend shopping for Christmas gifts and working on our projects.  I'm trying to make a couple Christmas gifts this year, so you might be one of the lucky ones who gets a homemade gift.  Ha!  I also have a couple other DIY projects that I'm going to try and write about in the next couple weeks.  Greg's birthday is on Thursday, so we are looking forward to celebrating.

Happy Holidays!