Close-up

Warning: picture-heavy post.

Hey there! Remember my tree when we first brought it home?

It's gone from that ^ all bare...

to this...

And no, it hasn't taken me all this time to decorate but it has taken me all this time to post about it. Anybody else do colored lights? I prefer white but YS2 loves the different colors so that's what we do.

Here are a few of my favorite or interesting ornaments:

My mom gets each of us siblings an ornament every year and has been doing this since we were all kids. We have different things we collect and well, if it's not obvious, I collect angels. I have a lot of angel ornaments!





YS2's first ornaments -- now, two years old. (sniff)

Homemade ornaments:

My mom is pretty crafty and made this mitten, along with other similar decorations, for me.

I made this bear with holly (?) leaves and white berries yeeears ago. It's missing a berry now as you can see. Looks like it was made by an 8 year old. Nope, I was an adult. Ha!

Here's another one of my amazing creations (as an adult again). Tried to be extra creative and ended up with something space-y! It was still fun to make.

My great aunt made this for me when I was little. There was another one she made where you'd pinch the cheeks and find a chocolate kiss but I lost that one. Anyway, this has some sentimental value because it is from my auntie but the bear (or is it a mouse?) looks a bit kooky now. lol

Some various ornaments:



A very dear friend of mine got me this real silver dipped pinecone -- she's moving away so this will now be even more special to me.

Sam and I have ornaments we collect each year, usually something made of glass. Although, we have a Swarovski (or two) and other ornaments that have gone AWOL. I'm too lazy to go digging thru the garage trying to find a misplaced box. A sample of our growing collection:



This year's handblown glass ornament -- made locally.

another local original

I think this is a Pottery Barn mass-production. But I still think it's pretty.

Gotta have some fun and whimsy and silliness, too...

lemon

There's a lot more fruit and different kinds too -- not really silly but it is fun.



is this a crab-apple?



musketeer cat

Love it when the lights shine on my disco ball tree

I think I got these in a white elephant gift exchange, they seem a little worse for wear now



After the tree was decorated (not fully, since I'm missing that one box still...), off we went to see the Halloween House transformed into the Christmas House. YS2 quickly pointed out (over and over) that the "house is not scary." Poor guy, remembers when it was scary.



I know this is a horrible shot but this is to give you an idea of all the craziness that goes on here. Their top deck wraps around the whole house and as you can see, there's something every foot -- around the whole house!

I could see in one of their windows and yeah, there's Christmas Cheer there too. And, it's nuts!

Well, my friends. I think I've either overwhelmed you enough with all these pics or bored you to tears so I'll end this now.

Hope you and your families and friends have a wonderful holiday season, no matter what you celebrate! Thank you for sharing this time with me and mine.

xo