Oh, Christmas Tree

We finally got around to putting up or Christmas tree today. This year, we decided to put the tree in the living room instead of the family room, as we usually do. No reason for the change. I just wanted to do something different.

The hardest part of the job was remembering where we had stored the decorations when we dismantled them last year. The ornaments were under the guest room bed. The outdoor lights were in the downstairs closet. And the indoor lights were in the garage. Backwards, yes, but we eventually found them.

Most of our ornaments consist of craft projects the boys made at school, items received from past family ornament exchanges, and cast-offs from Q's mom, my mom, and my grandma. But this year, I treated myself to a few new ones. I won a Pier 1 gift card in a raffle back in May, and it had been languishing in my wallet since. Today, I finally used it.

I went with a gold theme on the tree this year. I would have liked to do pink, but that would just make the tree too girlie. Besides, pink doesn't match the rest of the room.

I'm hoping put some Fiesta ornaments on next year's tree. I'd love a holiday lights ornament, but the stores that sell it don't have locations in the Phoenix area.


We also did some decorating on the front of the house. We kept it simple because Q's ladder won't reach the eaves on the second floor. We had also decorated the yard in the past, but decided against it this year. We get so much wind around here that yard ornaments tend to fall over or blow out of the ground. Unless they're deeply staked to the ground, inflatable snow globes and cactus do not mix.

We have a lighted reindeer, but he never stays where we stake him. And there's nothing sadder than having to pull Rudolph out of the gutter at 6:30 in the morning.