Deck the Halls {And a Surprise, don’t miss it}

At our house, our Christmas tree is kind of like a living Christmas tree.  I don’t mean we have a real tree because we don’t.  And D the Man told me that fake tree fake presents, but we have a fake tree, and real presents.  Just saying.

No what I mean is we collect ornaments every year that actually represent our lives/family every year.  Trips, big monument things, etc.  Sadly I think our tree is 6′ and we almost have it full.  There are a few ornaments from when I was younger that I could take off if I needed to, but I don’t want to… so for now they stay :).  Maybe one year we’ll have to have 2 trees but I’m not sure where we’ll put them.

Now in my kitchen up toward the ceiling I have these rack things.  They were there when we moved in, I just repainted them, but still, when we buy ornaments I actually place them up on these hooks so that come Christmas I remember what I did with them.  That’s what works for us.  Sometimes we misplace things otherwise :(.

Now I told you back in September we got a cat.  Hmmm cats and trees could be dangerous so three weeks ago, that would be about 3 weeks before Thanksgiving… we put the tree up.  It wasn’t decorated but it was put up to tempt the cat to see what she did.

Although I can’t say tooooo much because I never took the mistletoe down last year.  Nope, it stayed up all year long.  Reasons to kiss hubby, right?

So anyway… Kitty really only was upset because we moved things around, aka a side table and moved the couch.  She hates change.  Otherwise soo good so far, knock on wood!

We try to make it a point to decorate our tree while Tbug is around.  We knew that we had to get it done this weekend, otherwise it would be Christmas when the tree got decorated if we waited for her.  So Saturday night we sat down and decorated the tree.

We have a prelit tree but we noticed that some of the lights weren’t working so hubby decided to get a few strands of lights and put on the tree anyway.  We did colored and white lights to add color and flare to the tree.

Last year we did an old cowboy hat for the tree topper but I didn’t like it so much so I asked hubby if we could get a tree topper this year.  None of them at the store really impressed me, but we went ahead and got this one anyway because it was the cutest of them all.

This summer we spent the weekend in Branson right before our 4th of July party.  We went and Rode the Ducks so we got an ornament to commemorate that.  2 weekends ago we were driving back to Branson for the weekend and I opened up my glove compartment in the car and actually found the ornament.  See, this is WHY I hang them all in the kitchen, so I don’t forget, misplace or lose them.

When hubby and I went to St. Louis this summer, we were also able to attend a St. Louis Cardinals game, so we went and got ornaments from both places.

We always try to get a family ornament.  This year we got 3, one that represented each of us.

To add to mine here…. perfectly fitting we all thought.

When my parents went to Hawaii this fall, they brought this one back for me.

I have no idea about this ornament.  It was hanging in the kitchen…

And our Kansas City Chiefs, holla!

I told you our kitty doesn’t like change.  She really wasn’t enjoying our decorating of the tree….

So then the very last new ornament that we have so far….  It might just help explain a bit of my absence over the last few weeks (other than school kicking my arse)

Yes, you are reading that correctly.  Hubby and I are expecting Peanut the end of next June.  I’m currently 9 weeks.  I have back dated blog posts following this weird journey and I’ll let you know when they post.  I have to add pictures to them yet, but if you’re interested, I’ll let you know when they’re up.

So anyway, here is our Christmas tree both with lights on in the house and with lights off.  Bring on the Christmas season (and the last week of classes plus finals!)