Making Merry Early-ish

Gran's Ceramic Christmas Tree
Plays White Christmas

It feels weird to be decorating the house for Christmas before my birthday, and with a FULL week of November left. But if we didn't do it this weekend we would have to wait until NEXT weekend. This gives us extra time to enjoy the decorations (and extra time for me to spot and fill any gaps!).

Shawn decorated our walkway with the lights and lighted candy canes (Candy Cane Lane as we call it) and got the tree up, although it still needs to be decorated. I've got the various other decorations out -- stockings, kid crafts through the years hung on the walls with tape, stuffed animals, tchotchkes, framed photos.

And one of my favorites: Gran's ceramic Christmas tree. It has a wind up in the back that plays White Christmas. I coveted this thing for years, and toward the end of her life Gran didn't get it out anymore (it's fragile and fussy to get all the little plastic pegs in their holes). She gave it to me when I asked about it, but I haven't always gotten it out when I have little kids running around. Hopefully I'm not running too big a risk this year! The wiring is ancient -- that cord is probably older than me -- but it still works. I think I have replaced the bulb, but it shines brightly now. It adds a nice ambiance when the lights are out -- the regular tree lights plus this. I have it on my crochet cabinet that Shawn made me last year for Christmas, so it's nice and sturdy and the girls so far seem OK to just look at it.

Our regular tree is one of the pre-lit kinds, and we've had it for several years (maybe 6 or 7?), so some of its lights have died. We bought some strands of lights at the end of last year and used those -- they look a little weird (some are huge bulbs and others are small, neither match the lights that came with the tree itself). And one of the strands can switch from multi-colored to white. So you know Jane picked multi-colored, making the tree look EXTRA crazy. Once we get our ornaments on I'll take a picture. I plan to start this evening -- have got baking to do for our church's Advent festival tomorrow plus groceries don't make themselves. (We still have an overload of Thanksgiving leftovers, but the girls won't eat any of them, and I am nervous about eating them too long because they were left out for HOURS after the meal on Thursday -- a risk when you're eating at someone else's house!)