Time for some tree trimming fun!

I know that I should be telling you all about the great adventures that I had on my birthday and I will I promise, but I just couldn't wait to post about my Christmas tree!  Did I mention that I love Christmas?  It's my favorite time of year.  The weather starts to get a little bit colder, which gives you the excuse to drink hot chocolate or holiday flavored coffee drinks from Starbucks pretty much guilt free.  (Ironically the weather here in Hawaii has not been getting much colder or much rainier yet.  Usually the rainy weather starts around mid-October, but so far nothing much has happened weather-wise since summer time.  Is it just me or does global warming seem to be coming sooner rather than later?)  You get to bake holiday cookies for friends and neighbors, which means someone has to taste them...just to be sure that they are up to par.  Also, you can shop as much as you want with the excuse "I'm just getting all of my holiday gift shopping out of the way."  Who's going to notice the 5 pairs of shoes that you bought for yourself?  No one when it's mixed in with all of your other holiday purchases that is.  What's not to love?

So to kick us off in real holiday style, please start humming the tune to jingle bells while you read this post...lol.  Actually my favorite Christmas song is "I'll be home for Christmas" sung by Mr. Bing Crosby.  What can I say?  I'm a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas music.  Sure I love Mariah's "All I want for Christmas is You", but "White Christmas" by Bing is my go to album for good old fashioned Christmas fun.

For your listening pleasure. :)

My husband set up the Christmas tree as a birthday surprise for me, but we didn't get the chance to decorate it until last night.  On my way home from work I ran to the store and bought some egg nog to get us in the spirit, because how can you decorate the tree without egg nog?  Personally, egg nog is not my favorite, but my husband really likes it.  It's not Christmas to him without egg nog, therefore I buy the egg nog.  It was the least I could do, since he put up the whole 6' tree, lights and all, by himself.  Nevermind that the lights are already attached to our tree...lol.

Anyways...here's our tree this year.

What do you think?  I'm thinking maybe some floral wrapper needs to be added...though that would require taking some of the ornaments off to put it on and then putting them back.  My husband will be none too pleased with that scenario...

Here's the wide shot of our living room.  It's clean!  I know, a miracle happened.  It stayed clean just long enough to take this picture...lol.

When my husband I first started dating, all those long years ago, we started the tradition of buying each other a Christmas ornament each year in the hopes that one day when we got our own tree to decorate that we'd have some special ornaments to start us off.  Awww...I know.  We're super sappy that way...lol.

Here are a few of my favorites...

WALL-E

EVE.  Both of which are kids toys that my husband fashioned into Christmas ornaments because they didn't have a Christmas ornament out yet.

A purse with wings.  There's just something so whimsical about this one.  My mom gave me this one...maybe that's part of the reason that I love it so much.

I bought this one when I still worked at Ben Franklin.  I thought it would be something cool to have when we have kids of our own...some day.  The plaque reads:

Santa's Magic Key

Our stockings hung upon a wall.

We have no fireplace at all!

You see the problem is quite clear, 

Santa, how will you get in here?

We heard a legend.  Is it true?

Of magic only you can do.

We'll leave out any plain old key, 

and mark it "Santa" so you can see.

Your magic makes the key fit right, 

so you can get inside that night.

Thank you Santa, here's our key.

The milk and cookies are on me!

These are a few that I hand-sewed a couple of years back.  I love felt ornaments.  They feel old and nostalgic to me, like they are from another time in history.

Now that you've seen my holiday decore, what does yours look like?  Are you the "do it up big" or "holiday minimalist" type?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!