Christmas Tree

Here's our tree!

Don't laugh...this is as good as it gets living in an apartment :)

Every ornament on this tree is so special to me. They are ornaments my mom has given me over the course of my life (and a few from Grandma and other odd ones). Each year, my mom thinks of something significant in our life (that happened that year) and finds an ornament to match. I LOVE this tradition and have starting doing the same for my family.
The middle of the tree looks sparse...that is because the kids move the ornaments around all day.

And here's a funny story about our tree. When we moved here last August, I left all of our Christmas decoration back in storage, thinking we wouldn't need any decorations because we would be in Utah for most of December. Well, I quickly realized that would not be the case and we would be home for most of December. And how depressing would our house be with out any decorations?!

So, over Thanksgiving (last year) I packed an extra suit case of Christmas decorations and brought them home with us, including this little Christmas tree my mom bought us. The reason she bought us the tree is because in my head, there were NO places here to purchase a tree...or any decorations to buy, for that matter.

When ever I'd go home to visit family (in the first 6 months we lived here) I would stock up on all kinds of things. Make-up, clothing, decorations, etc... because I honestly didn't think I could get them here. Weird, I know.

Now I know, you CAN actually get a Christmas tree here! Even a real one...but who goes through all the effort? :) And I actually do purchase most of my 'things' here now.

Since we don't have a fireplace (or dishwasher, washer, dryer, and garbage disposal...just to remind you) I bought this stocking holder. And there are 4 stockings on the stocking holder, because we have 4 people in our family (inside joke for Kell :)We love ALL things Christmas! We are listening to Christmas music every second (loving Pandora for this!) and talking about Christmas all day. Max and Ava love the tree, almost too much. Davey saw Ava putting some ornaments in the garbage this morning...oops.

Christmas day will come early for us. Since we are traveling and not at our house on Christmas morning, Santa comes before we leave. So, we are down to 5 days!