Christmas is Coming

It's almost time! I have finally finished my Christmas shopping, and am now working on wrapping presents. Here are some of my favorite Christmas decorations:

This is a ceramic Christmas tree from Scott's grandparents. 

I always wanted a Christmas village. And one day Scott's aunt gave us a complete city!

And of course, my beautiful nativity from my beautiful Grandma. <3

Sometimes I wish that the Christmas season would never end. I love being surrounded by the pretty lights and all of the little keepsakes that have been given to us over the years. 

Christmas music is more important than you give it credit for.

The spirit of Christmas, i believe, is highly dependent on music. Music sets the tone for just about everything in my life anyway. And this Christmas season is no different! Just like last Christmas, and probably every Christmas in my future, i've been listening exclusively to Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums. I find his holiday music to be much more in tune with the mood i feel should be present at Christmas time. SO to spare you (my 5 glorious readers whom i love so dearly) from having to listen to 99.9 and the same 10 obnoxious songs repeatedly, i've posted a link to my favorite of Sufjan's Christmas songs so you can have a little sample before you rush out and buy all the albums. Though i'm confident that will happen.

you're welcome.

The Ornaments

 Let's talk about decorating a tree for a second. Do you prefer the perfectly matched and fancy Christmas tree, or the messy sentimental one?

Personally- I favor the sentimental tree. Growing up, most of our ornaments were the ones that us kids had made in school for my parents and it was so fun to laugh and reminisce while we hung them on the tree. While my husband and I haven't been  blessed with children yet, we still value a sentimental tree. So our tree is filled with ornaments we've purchased together, or that were given to us by family members.

Each year we each pick a new ornament for our tree (usually after Christmas..) This year we are going to get a joint ornament and buy a new tree topper. Our star always falls off.

Here are some of my favorite ornaments:

I purchased this grasshopper from Anthropologie last year (my favorite store)

My mother-in-law gave me this ship ornament for Christmas a few years ago. (okay, it's also from Anthropologie...)

We have three of these tear shaped beauties. They belonged to Scott's grandma. I never had the good fortune of meeting her, but I feel honored to have something she liked on my tree.

My great grandma made this little pink star. It has been a favorite of mine since I was a tiny child. I had to beg my mom to let me take it with me when I got married. She has a few more, but this was her favorite too. 

Scott made this baby Jesus in his manger when he was really little. I think it's a peanut? At any rate, he brought it with him when we got married and it will be around forever. Unless it rots, or a dog eats it.

And I know you saw her yesterday, but here is our perfect tree filled with sentiment! 

Let the Holiday Season Begin!

Sometimes I feel like the Christmas season hasn't really started until we've found THE tree. When I was a kid this would happen soon after Thanksgiving because we used a fake tree (brothers have allergies... psh). So the tree would get set up within a week after Thanksgiving and we would decorate it and it would feel like Christmas for the several weeks leading up to that special day. 

Now that I'm married, and no longer live with allergy ridden siblings, we get the joy of using a real tree during the holiday season. This year we found the perfect tree at Home Depot. We may have made one of the employees cry when we took this baby home because he'd been eyeing it all week. (I say may have because... we left before we could find out) 

Here she is! Perfectly filled out, and exceptionally green. She's got almost a lime green quality to her branches. Almost everyone has asked "is it fake" the first time they saw her. But her beautiful perfume reminds us that she is not. And although she won't be up as long as some of the fake trees around town, she will make the season just a smidge more tangible as she emits her glorious scent. 

The other most important part of Christmas is the Nativity. Okay, in all actuality I suppose this should be my main requirement for the holiday since it depicts the actual reason for Christmas. Even though I admit that I subscribe, perhaps too much, to the commercialism of Christmas, I swear I spend just as much time sitting and looking at my nativity as I do at my tree. 

My mother collects Nativities. There was always at least a small nativity out at my house all year round, but at Christmas time the house was completely covered in them. I always loved helping my mom set them up. She even had several that were unbreakable so little kids could play with them. 

My grandma must have known how special nativities are to me, and she gave me this set the first Christmas of my married life. I have a plastic one from my mom too :-)