Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Which is a good thing since its less than a week away!  We finally got our Christmas decorations up last weekend.  Between being in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, Phoebe and I traveling to DE, Chris being in Dallas for a week, and then traveling to Chattanooga for a weekend, we really had not been home together long enough to get the tree up and the decorations out of the attic.

We always had a real Christmas tree growing up.  Picking out the perfect Christmas tree was an event.  We would always go in November to the Christmas tree farm to tag our tree.  We would look through rows and rows of trees to find the perfect one.  We would tag it and then GO BACK to the tree farm in December to cut it down and bring it home.  Then after college I always bought a real tree, so I was a bit of a snob about having a real tree.  But when Chris and I got married our landlord had left an artificial tree in the basement and told us we could use it.  That first year we were married it was very busy around Christmas and we were out of town a lot (sort of like this year) so we opted for the artificial tree because we wouldn't have to worry about it dying without water while we were out of town.  And you know what, I LOVED it!  Really, I don't like most artificial trees, but this is a great one!  Its big and full/fat (one of my favorite traits about a Christmas tree).  And of course the pre-lit options is pretty sweet as well.  I must admit, I'm a convert.  We're planning on soliciting our landlord to take this tree with us when we move!

When Chris and I got married, well really before we were married, we started collecting nativity sets.  We both love them and thought it would be a fun way to remember different trips or special occasions.  

Chris gave me this one for Christmas a week before he proposed

 We bought this one in CO our first Christmas together.  It is one of our favorites.  Its made out of nails and baby Jesus is a small crown.

When we first were married some friends gave us the Holy Family of this Fontanini set and we have collected more pieces over the past three years.

 We bought this one in Kenya last summer.  It's made from Ebony wood.

 This one also came from Kenya- made from banana leaves.  We were laughing at this one the other day because there is no Mary and Joseph!  I'm not sure if we lost them or we just didn't notice this last year or when we bought it...  Surely we lost them.

Chris got this one is Israel- made from Olive Wood.

This one is fun because the candle light shines through.

Don't make fun of my stockings....  I was saying earlier this year that I wanted to find nice matching stockings for us all, but obviously didn't happen.  Our first Christmas (that was so busy) I found cheap old stockings from a college project and glitter paint, so I made us stockings to get through that first year. ...apparently I haven't bought new ones yet.  I had that third one in a box from something so it went up as Phoebe's- she won't know the difference.  Hopefully next year I'll have some more attractive stockings.

Christmas Cards

Oh and the cowboy tree.  I hate the cowboy tree.  Really.  But Chris loves the cowboy tree.  So what goes up in our house every year?  The cowboy tree.  It is Christmas cowboys with Christmas cacti, and because it is behind the sink I see it whenever I am washing dishes...

And of course the poinsettia.  Love poinsettias.  We get at least one every year and most years I manage to kill them before Christmas...

Last night we even wrapped some presents!  We are feeling pretty accomplished right now.