Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like....

Christmas!  

My dad had called to say he was passing through town and wanted to drop off some gifts.  That was all it took to prompt me to get out the holiday box and get to work setting up the tree.  I mean, if I was going to have packages to put somewhere it seemed directly under the tree was the only way to go about it.

I don't have much in the way of Christmas decorations, but I think it is just the perfect amount for Matt and I.  We've got a small tree, which came from my great-aunt Mary Ann, which I lovingly adorn with bubble lights (my favorite) and all the Christmas ornaments that I acquired during my childhood, plus a couple which I acquired in adulthood.  Each and every one is special and unique and tied to me with happy memories.  I love that.

The above and below photos show my two favorite ornaments, both of which were handmade by my mother.  My sisters and I all have the bears with our names on their bellies.  They are the oldest in my collection.  My entire life I had woman, Penny, who is like a second mother to me.  She gave me an ornament every year until I moved off to college.  Most of them still note the year in which I received them.  There are a lot of special memories in the ornaments on my tree.  Even this lights, too, for that matter.  I have three strands of bubble lights.  One came from my grandmother.  One from Matt during one of our first Christmases together.  And the third just this year as an early present from my step-mother, Dana.

I used some fabric from my stash for the tablecloth and tree skirt.  The blue and red plaid is older than I am and was given to me by my mother.  She never found the use for it and so far I hadn't either until this year.  Someday I think it would make a swell heavy winter skirt.  But, it makes a good holiday table dressing as well.  I'm not sure where the red fabric came from.

More ornaments line the windows in the front door.  I can quite vividly remember painting the Santa on the left at a card stamping party I went to with my mother at one of her friend's houses in my youth.  It is covered--and I mean covered--in glitter.  It makes me smile with glad fondness at my sweet childhood self.

Even though it has been so incredibly warm recently we did get enough snow at the end of November to make everything very lovely in that clean, bright, wintery way.  Matt and I set out around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights a few different nights.  I think that snow makes the lights look all the more beautiful.  The snow add a softness to everything and reflect the lights adding to their happy, twinkling effect.  I especially like the way it looks dusting the pine boughs, back-lit by the strands of lights.  That seems so quintessentially Christmas to me.  The snow is gone now, but I'm hopeful that it will be back in time for a white Christmas.  Living my whole life where I have on this great planet, for me, Christmas just isn't the same without it.