O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

It was decorate the house weekend - after our Thanksgiving get together!! I ALWAYS look forward to decorating, even though it takes a LONG time and lots of carrying up and down the lower level steps!!


I decided to put my village houses in a different place this year!! I always agonized about putting them on top of the kitchen cabinets because it was SO MUCH WORK!!! I have to stand on a step ladder as Glenn doesn't want me standing on the granite counter tops!! And because I'm so short, the leaning over part to reach the tops is not fun!! Not only was there all the stuff to take down from there, but then putting all the village up there, along with trying to plug it all in - bottom line - it took me almost 2 hours each year to get it set up

So I made the decision last year that I was going to put it on top of the entertainment center in the lower level, which is where we spend most of our time anyway as the TV is down there!! It was a GREAT decision!! They look fantastic there and the setting up part was much easier!! I still had to set them on small boxes and because there are already cords up on top because of the lights in the entertainment center, I had to cut some side holes in the boxes so they would sit straight. But it was a far cry from putting them on top of the cabinets again!! Hooray for easier decorating!!

The MOST fun is always decorating my "travel" tree!!! And this year I had 4 new ornaments to add to the bunch - Las Vegas, Puerto Morales Mexico, Michigan and Belize!! Once again, I had the pleasure of reliving each vacation as I put each ornament on the tree!! I realized this Christmas that the tree is getting pretty full of ornaments as of course I have many, many others I put up - but Jessi told me you can NEVER have too many ornaments on a tree so I'll take her word for it!!

The house looks great and is all complete - and my evenings can be spent sipping apple cider in front of the fireplace and dreaming of future vacations and ornaments for the tree!!