How Beautiful Your Branches.

I know once it gets here I will be bitching about the drive, but here in Michigan we are STILL waiting for snow!  I didn't want to get our tree last weekend because it was rainy and muddy but this weekend I felt like we were pushing it...I can't wait for the snow any longer because I want to enjoy my tree for a few weeks, at least!

In forty degree weather, we tromped through the woods looking for the tree that everyone I liked...David really wanted one of those with the super long needles that look like hair, yuck!  I always like the ones (and I don't know the name) that have the soft needles and the branches are kind of rounded...no pokeys.

Once we found the perfect one, Jon chopped it down and we headed back up.  David was so upset because the tree we picked out was "absolutely hideous" he went off to find another one?  Like he had forty bucks in his pocket or like we could have fit another one on top of the van or...like we have room in the house for two?  I'm not sure.

While Jon was paying and loading the tree, we sat by the fire and roasted marshmallows.  I let Ryan try but he basically just rubbed them all over the charred logs until they fell off and I had to do it my damn self anyway.

After getting the tree home, we had to wait a few days to decorate since I had school, so these kids were chomping at the bit!  Once we started, I was guarding my ornaments like they were gold because I just know these two are dying to break one of them on purpose, just to see me cry.

We have ornaments collected from every place we've traveled, some homemade from when David was really little and then sentimental ones...the night my mom and I went to the Nutcracker, the ornaments my mother-in-law buys the kids each year, the one my friend Judy gave me a few years before she died and then it happened....the one grandma bought me in Florida the year I visited and we shopped at the Christmas store.  An angel now has a broken wing.

Until they are thirty five, I won't bring down the super special ones...the cookie ornaments we made with my grandma so many years ago.  I remember my sister and I sitting at her dining room table with the puffy paint just like it was yesterday and now more than ever I am cherishing every.single.item that my grandparents touched.  So for that they are off limits and I might even go out and buy them a fireproof case.  Kidding.

For the last few days Ryan has been asking if he could put the star on top of the tree, though the last few years we've had just a santa hat as our topper.  I asked him what kind of star he wanted and he was insistent that Christmas tree stars are GOLD.  Has to be GOLD.  So while we started decorating Jon ran to Wal-mart to get us the illusive gold star.

My camera wouldn't focus because of the shiny lights on the tree so Ryan not only got to put the golden star on once but twice, three times, four and finally five times. 

Um, hello did you forget my Ballerina Barbie?  What a face...

Once everything was cleaned up and the kids were in bed, I just sat in the dark looking at my tree and listening to Christmas music...talk about PEACEFUL!  I could have sat there for hours.

I figured that since you have gotten the inside tour of lights, I better give you some snapshots from the outside.  Jon has really stepped up his game this year which makes me super happy because I love holidays and he's generally a Grinch which sometimes has the ability to bring me down a notch or two...light it up baby!

Now I'm ready.  Bring on some snow and then bring on Christmas!