looking very Christmas-y

It's looking very Christmas-y around here (and not just when I'm playing with the lights). Last weekend we headed off to a local tree farm to find a tree. Space in our place is limited so we carefully measured what little room we have and headed off with tape measure and specs in hand.

I learned quickly that I am terrible at judging sizes. We had agreed that a 3 foot tree was probably as big as we could go, but when we got to the farm the 3 foot trees were just so little. There were all little round balls with spindles on top. Barely trees at all. We trudged on in the rain, measuring a tree every row or two. I could feel my Christmas shrinking a little. And then, off to one side, I saw our tree. There he stood, a majestic 5 footer standing out in a crowd of rounded ankle-biters. If trees had to go to junior high, you know this is the one that would have been picked on. I thought he was beautiful. Kendra thought there was no way he was going to fit.
We got out the tape measure and sure enough our shapely tree was only 2.5 feet across, on the high end of our specs to be sure, but slender enough to squeeze in. I looked longing over at it with the gaze 5 year olds reserve for new puppies and knew that Christmas would be safe after all. The tree farm man cut him down, we loaded him in the truck and brought him home. Sure he's a little taller than we agreed to, but I think he's perfect. (And no, I have no idea either how this tree acquired a gender, he just did.) With the tree in place, Christmas could truly begin.

On Thursday night we headed back to Michael's for a cookie decorating class and learned a new technique that has been put to vigorous use this weekend, but that's another post.


I really liked the way the colors came out on these. Working with Royal icing gives you a lot of wiggle room to move the icing around so all sorts of intricate patterns are possible. A good time was had by all.

With the cookies decorated, it was time to head to Creative Nails to decorate myself a little. I stick to a classic French manicure most of the year, but Christmas calls for a little sparkle. Besides, around here, fancy nails are a Christmas tradition.
The tree is tucked in the corner this year and in the evening it throws these perfect shadows up against the wall. I have no idea how to photograph it properly, but you'll have to take my word for it, it's very pretty.
On Friday I took the day off to do Christmas-y things and in the morning Shannon came over to make snowmen and snowflakes (of the indoor variety). I finally got them all finished and strung up and I think they look rather festive. For some reason, they also make me think of IKEA although I'm really not sure why. They are very sparkly. I may do some more if I can find more of the little mirrors. The snowmen are still a work in progress.

It's crazy to think when we wake up tomorrow Christmas will be just 10 days away. What a lovely time of year.