our sweet tree

It's been up for over a week, I have just been too busy to write. Typical of this time of year. Thankfully, we are done shopping and making for the holiday and almost all of the presents are wrapped and under the tree. Only 3 more to get under there before Friday when we celebrate Christmas with my folks. Saturday morning, early, we are off to Jason's grandmothers for the day. We decorated our tree a week ago Sunday, that's Dec 12 for those of you trying to figure it out. The kids and Jason got the tree while I was off spa-ing it up with my friends at the Jeju in Atlanta. I LOVE the tree they got! They went after a potted tree, which has never ended well for us. They have always died in the past and this one ended up being just perfect for the spot I wanted to put it this year. So, Sunday evening, we went and got some doughnuts from Krispy Kreme and turned on some cheesy Christmas music and set to work.

My favorite part of decorating the tree is really just going through the ornaments. You see, we have a holiday tradition of decorating our own ornaments rather than buying them. We often have a party and invite our friends over to do the same, but it hasn't worked out this year for us to do that this year. I've made salt dough ornaments (we had better directions this year) and now they are just waiting for us to get them painted. I also found an idea for a pretty paper snowflake that I may try once we get going on tomorrow night. I love how the kids make fun of what they have created in the past and seeing the progress their skills have made. I love sharing the stories over who gave us what ornaments. Of course, there are always a few we don't remember, but I love thinking about our loved ones as we hang them on the tree and the times we share with the memories. We always have more ornaments than the tree can ever hold, but that's o.k. we still get them all out and look at them.

So, without further ado, here's our tree.

and l