Our Christmas Tree

We take our Christmas tree very seriously around here. I love the tradition of it; pulling out all the boxes of ornaments out of storage, finding favorite decorations, and coming across ones that I forgot about from the year before! This year's tree is a big one, and we put over ten strands of lights and who knows how many bulbs and ornaments! I love it. ♥

THE TREE

The finished product, in all it's glowy, Christmas-y glory. 

There's nothing like sitting cozy on the couch, with just the lights on the tree illuminating the room. (See my little oranges down there? Yay!) This window in the living room is perfect, too -- look how pretty the lights reflect on the glass! That window is at the front of the house, so I can see the lit-up tree as I drive down the driveway when I'm coming home from work. Now all we need is snow... it's been so rainy and warm (like 40 degrees!), that almost all of it is melted! It is scary and a pain to have to drive in it, but I'm nervous that we won't have a white Christmas. 

THE ORNAMENTS

Here are close-ups of some of my favorite ornaments! This is definitely not all of them, of course - some are kind of hard to take in the dark, so I'll have to sneak a few shots tomorrow in the daylight. Don't worry - one is a crystal unicorn, so it is definitely worth the wait. 

My lion! Markie's sister gave this to me four Christmases ago. I love those icicles, too.

Bear party! I love those guys. Especially the girl; she's my favorite of all time. Let's get a better look... 

CUTE! Markie said that she's been around since the 70s. Can you tell? She's the best.

Cute tree, as well as a delicate birdie that is part of a special invite-only tree-top club.

Christmas kitty! There are two.

A super cute, knit dolly that Markie attached to a gift to me one Christmas. I love her piggies.

I almost kept that strawberry out all year! My mommy bought it for me!

The top of the tree, populated, of course, by birdies, stars, and the moon.

Merry Christmas!

Oh, but where did this lovely tree come from! Here are a few pictures of the day we got the tree - the day of Camel Party! It started out nice and calm, but by the end of the day, snow storm! The snow didn't start until we were driving the trees back home..

FINDING THE TREE

Which tree will it be?

Mark's sister's tree is on the left and ours is the giant one! Thanks Home Depot!

I was on tree-watching duty on the half hour drive back home.

Half-hour later, it was snowing pretty heavily! And the rest is history..

I love this big guy! Markie had a great idea to look through my pictures to find ones of the trees from every year I've been out here - maybe I'll have to do that and show you guys what I found. I have a feeling this might be the biggest one, but who knows! Even now, as I type, I'm staring lovingly at the tree and it's beautiful kaleidoscope reflection it's making on the ceiling. Merry Christmas, everybody!