decorating for Christmas

Every year there's a bit of a balancing act going on in our house. We like to decorate some for Christmas but we're always gone for at least a week over the holidays, so in some ways it's kind of a hassle, especially with all of the other things on the calendar. So we don't really want to go all-out. We don't do a live tree because they will just die while we're not here. Same for poinsettias and other holiday plants. But this year even though we'll be out of town for 2 weeks, we did buy a few extra strings of lights and decorations. Steve's been trying to get them out on the pine tree in our front yard, but by the time he'll finish we'll probably be about ready to head out of town :) We underestimated the amount of strings we'd need and I need to go buy 2 more at least.

Steve's a pretty traditional guy when it comes to the holidays. We have a few traditions of our own, and I think that I've tamed him down as far as his expectations of how those traditions are carried out because I'm not really that traditional. I like to mix it up and play it by ear. But each year as we set up our slightly pathetic-looking, pre-lit tree, I remember the first Christmas we were married. We did the whole, picking out a tree (the only year we've bought a real one) and setting it up, etc. Steve was taking out each ornament of his and telling me who gave it to him, or when he made it. I had a few ornaments that I'd bought on sale when I worked in a bookstore, or that people had given to us as wedding gifts, but as we were going through them all, Steve looked at me and asked very seriously "where are your ornaments?" I thought it was so funny, it was the classic "his tradition" meets "my non-tradition" moment :) That memory always makes me smile.

Anyway, here are a few pics of our decor...

Our tree, notice our topper. Yep, it's up there each year. No angel or star for us!