O Christmas Tree

Decorating for holidays rocks.  Having skeleton stickers on the windows or colored eggs on the shelves... it just gets me in a celebratory mood.  It makes me feel like there's something to look forward to!  That it's not just an ordinary time!  We have an exorbitant number of boxes filled with decorations for Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day... even St. Patrick's day!
 
Christmas?
One red bow with bells on it
Three strings of colored lights
That's it.

WHAT??????

It took me a second to realize that 90% of my decorations have come from care packages from my mom over the last few years.  But she never sent Christmas packages because I always was home for Christmas. 

When living with roommates I had to buy something so I'd put the lights up in our windows and put the bow on our door.  It was enough to hold me over until I went home to the 12-foot work of art my mom always has glowing in the living room.

Roy and I are both excited to go to Tucson and put our presents under that awesome tree this Christmas.  BUT we aren't just roommates living in dorm rooms, you know?  This is our little home and we have no Christmas decorations! 

Newlywed tight budget, I know I can't go crazy on buying decorations.  Especially this time of year when there's present buying and card sending etc.  BUT I insisted on this beauty. 

It's real!  And it smells like a house should near Christmas: Piney!  I've considered bringing it inside at night so we can wake up to the smell of pine.  Then it will truly feel like Christmas time.  But instead I've just made a new little tradition: Smelling our wreath on the way inside.  We both do it.  Roy says, "for luck."  Poor guy, he's married to a weirdo that makes him sniff Christmas wreaths.

So this almost makes up for not having a Christmas tree.  We debated for a long time whether we should get one.  But in the end, it didn't make sense to go buy one to enjoy for two weeks and then not even be there to enjoy it the week leading up to Christmas or for the actual day.  Sad, but practical.

So yesterday I got home from work and started getting ready for Roy's office Christmas party.  Work-casual... so I was trying to figure out what I had in my closet that would fit that description.  But walking between our bedroom and our bathroom I saw a weird bulky shape taking up half our living room.

Can you believe it?  Roy surprised me with a Christmas tree!  At his work they decorate with some trees and the boss decided they didn't want this one anymore and gave it to Roy.  He even gave him lights, garland, and some ornaments too!!! 

As you can tell, it's a beast of a tree.  Roy had a hard time shoving it into the back of his car and apparently had a hard time standing it up in our living room too.  It kind of looks like a Grinch tree all bent up like that, doesn't it?  I like it!  It's standing between the couch and the TV.  I guess we won't be watching TV for a while, but it's so worth it to have a tree!

It's really Christmas time now! :-)