'Tis the Season

Ok, as promised, here is our tree and decorations!

While at Steve's Holiday office party, we were talking to a girl Steve works with. We were telling her that we were looking for a cheap you-cut tree place and she offered that we could come to her house and cut down a tree, for free. What wait? A while ago, her parents tried to do a you-cut tree thing, and well, it didn't go over well. But now they have a ton of Noble-Firs just sitting there. So she said that we could come over and get a tree. (Her and her hubby live there now while her parents are back east for a while) So we loaded up the kids and drove out to Vancouver to her place to get a tree.

The kids loved running around in her house. Didn't much care for the high grass outside around the trees. But, with the help of Wedge (that's her husband's name!) we picked out the perfect tree. I was a little nervous, I've never had a Noble-Fir for a Christmas tree. I never thought we could pull it off. But, well, I think that's all we'll get from now on!

This was my year to pick out the lights. I choose to do a "candy cane" tree with red and white lights. I love it! So, here you go, our Christmas tree!

So pretty!

Sorry it's blurry, but you get the idea of the ornaments on the tree!

We let the kids put the apples on and their ornaments. Can you see some of their favorite branches?

Much better. Love this tree. But it fell, yesterday. So now that's back up, it's a little different and I'm having a hard time loving it again. Oh well. Tell me if you can see a difference. The "new" tree is at the bottom.

Here is my snowmen, Santa, Old Main (we took that from Steve's undgrad graduation a couple years ago, and because it was durning December, it's now part of our Christmas decorations) and Steve's Santa hat!

Close up on our snowmen that Aunt Elizabeth made for us. They were suppose to be of our family, but, well, we had too many kids for her to catch up, so now it's just a snowman family!

Our stockings. From left to right, Steve, Jake, Leo, Teage, Zoe and Sara's. We love our mismatch of stockings!

This year Steve's Dad and his wife sent us a couple of packages with a ton of gifts. Well, 25 to be exact. They are wanting their children to do a "25 days of Christmas" thing. We've been doing our best to do the task for each day (not all gifts are for us, but for someone in need or in need of cheering up). Along with the gifts were these candy advent calendar for the kids. Think about it, there was 100 pieces of candy on those. We've fallen behind on the candy removal, and I might have picked off the all the chocolate one night when I got a craving!

My Nativity set. I love it! My MIL gets all her girls (real, step and in-law) a new thing each year for their Nativity. Everything here is from my amazing MIL! Last year I got a Jake and a Zoe!! Jake is the little boy fishing, and Zoe is the maid on the right holding some olives in a basket. Isn't that awesome? Now if only they made a Leo and a Teage?!?

And here is my advent calendar. This year, Jake is taking notice of the numbers and is counting the days till Christmas!

The after tree. Now that is straight and all the ornaments are back on the tree, here is what she looks like now. It just feels crowded now, but I think it's growing on me now.

At the office party, there was a White Elephant gift exchange. We were lucky enough to take home two gifts (someone had to leave early and so we got their gift). We ended up taking home a snuggie, and an awesome light up reindeer. The reindeer was from the host (Steve's Senior Manager for this client they were working on) and he was so excited that we got it and love it! The kids love it and wanted it on all the time. Now, it's outside with our lights on the porch (only it won't plug into our lights and I can't find an extension cord to plug it in).

This the the reindeer! And the photo Steve sent to Peter in the thank-you e-mail for hosting and letting us come over. Peter was really excited to see Rudolf put to good use! (and don't worry, it was a free gift from Peter, he found it in their new home in a crawl space!!)

So there you go. Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you and yours have a wonderful Holiday Season!