I'm blaming it on the late Thanksgiving. The fact that we had Thanksgiving, and within a matter of days (not even a week!) we were into December. Fast forward simply a week in December, and Ian and I are flying home for Christmas in 2 weeks! How time flies! I still have Christmas shopping to do! And we hadn't even decorated....
Until this weekend.
On Wednesday, we walked up to Delancey Street Christmas trees just a few blocks from our house, and picked out this awesome 3-footer. Our trick is to pick a smaller tree then place it in our front windows on a storage container (the one we actually use to keep our holiday gear). From the outside, it looks pretty big, but in our living room, he's a little guy.
Here's an observation about buying Christmas trees in a lot. When I was growing up, I can't really remember a time where we had a real Christmas tree. For as long as I can remember, we have had the same fake tree (that my Dad still uses, and I "borrowed" for a time when living in Kentucky). So, I never realized that going to get a live tree would be such an experience.
What happens is straight out of my 2nd grade play, which was called The Littlest Christmas Tree. Or perhaps thinking about poor Charlie Brown's tree. Or the fact that my family consistently gives personalities to inanimate objects. Still. What happens is that I tend to think like my inner 8-year old self and wonder if the tree's feelings would be hurt if I don't choose it. Or wonder if they're sad they're not big and fluffy, but kind of scrawny. If their boughs droop when person after person pass them by, without so much as a glance.
So I find myself whispering my likes to Ian, so the trees can't hear. How psychotic is that! Or I'm tempted to find the most "full bough" challenged, the smallest, the crookedest tree and select that one to go home with me.
But I don't. Within, oh--about 10 seconds, I found our little man.
We tagged him, grabbed some mistletoe, and were walking home with him. Our 2nd annual tradition.
Fast forward until this weekend, and Saturday was the day! I wrapped presents to help get me in the mood in the afternoon, drinking some wine and keeping some cheesy holiday movies on in the background. Ian worked on a project and then played xbox live with his friend Cliff, and drank some holiday Maker's Mark. It wasn't really holiday, but I'm sure it helped him feel the spirit. Then we made (ok, Ian made) a wonderful dinner of filets, potato croquettes, carrots, and broccoli. We finished off by baking sugar cookies.
The fire was lit, Christmas music was on, eggnog filled my glass. And so we decorated our little tree, who I will now name Martin. It feels really nice to see these old ornaments that now tell the story of Ian and I as a family.
We bring them out, talk about where they came from, how long we've had them...good times.
Oh, it's getting so close to Christmas! We leave for NC and VA in about a week and a half. Can't wait! Time to watch some Christmas favorites....
2 comments:
that looked like sooo much fun.. ask ian waht happen to the glass belss that looked like they came out of a Dr. Seuss book... and the macaroni 1st grade art that was replaced by matching decorative balls that look waaaay nicer than baby art ( looked more like i vomited macaroni and gold with glitter...)... I wonder what Ian's favorite ornament was growing up...
hmmmmmmm, could be a Table Topic ....
to clarify. when Hilliary writes "glass belss" she means "glass bells".
Those jokers were so fragile. I always felt like MA put them on the tree really slowly and carefully. dumb really when you have a 115 pound dog with a 30 pound tail. it was like a 10 year of with the cardboard inside roll of the wrapping paper. that thing was swinging around all over.
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