Monday, December 8, 2008

O Christmas Tree

Well it's official, our Balsam Fir real Christmas tree has officially found its home for the next 2-3 weeks...our living room. Saturday afternoon we headed to a local store where they were selling trees and we picked ours out from among hundreds of other beautiful trees. Now this wasn't quite the same as walking up and down the rows of trees and cutting it down ourselves, but it was fun nonetheless and it looks beautiful in our home. Please don't judge by these pictures because the lighting was terrible, I'll try and take some better pictures tonight when it's darker.

Hubby put the stand on it and leveled it and then came the fun part...hanging all of the ornaments on it. I just love pulling out each individual one and being reminded of when or where I got each specific ornament. I mentioned in my last post that we dont' really do theme trees with my family, but each ornament is definitely meaningful (even if it's just because I picked it out) & just love the memories I will have to share with my children some day. My mom also made me a beautiful tree skirt that I will now have forever and it looks just wonderful under our tree.

In other weekend happenings, Friday night we got all dressed up and headed to Hubby's office Christmas party. We had a murder mystery dinner in a neat old ballroom. It was a little hokey, but we had a good time. I again failed to take pictures, but in my defense I was in a room full of CPA's and those aspiring to be CPAs so it wasn't just a real lively crowd...;o)

Saturday was Tree Day and after decorating we were pretty worn out so we went out for pizza and when we got home I am proud to say I wrapped almost all of the presents we have bought so far which is quite a few. We're almost done with shopping, I still have a few things to buy for Hubby and I need to take care of my brother's gift...but otherwise we're pretty much finished. This is possibly the earliest I have been done shopping...EVER! I am also very happy with our gifts this year...I really work hard to get something that each person will love & I hope I've succeeded this year. We also work hard to stick to a budget for each person since we have quite a few gifts to buy...I'm also proud to say we have managed to stick to our budget very well. One quick financial tidbit, one of the smartest things Hubby ever made me do was to save for Christmas time, we put back a set amount each month and it's so nice when Christmas comes that we dont' have this huge credit card bill because we've already prepared for it. It's so easy and the money we put back each month we never miss!

We wrapped up the weekend with our Small Group Christmas party, we just love those people and I love the relationships we've built with them. We had a white elephant exchange and we actually came out quite well, Golden Tee Golf Arcade game for TV & a gift card to the movies! SCORE!!! Apparently the couple who brought Golden Tee got it for like $5 but Hubby was very excited!

Tonight includes putting bows on the presents I've got and wrapping a few more! I'll also try and remember to take some photos of the outside of our house. Hubby did such a good job with the lights!

No comments: