And so this is Christmas...

Well...December 13 has come and gone and Christmas is officially underway at our house now. Michael spent a majority of his time yesterday and today lighting up our little house. It looks great and I'll be posting some photos of the finished design when I have some time to take a timed exposure. Besides...we're supposed to get a big snow storm tomorrow night so it will be even prettier then. We've had a good couple of days...it's always a treat for me when it's finally time to get out our Christmas decorations, sort of a pre-Christmas Christmas! This year the wait was not nearly as long as it normally seems since I've been so busy with school. Hard to believe Christmas is only {nearly} ten days away!









































































I had a hard time with the tree this year, cutting it down made me feel really sad. I'm not sure why but my awareness of the tree's sacrifice on behalf of our annual tradition is much greater this year than it normally is. It's not that I don't typically think about what happens to trees at Christmas time because I do but this year was much more difficult for me for some reason. I stood there for a while and seriously thought about not having a tree this year. Now I'm nothing if not a traditionalist and I value our Christmas traditions in particular, so this is saying something. I actually came close to walking away but in the end we said a prayer of thanks and we still cut the tree down. Who knows...maybe my feelings are telling me it's time to make some changes? Maybe in future years we will decide to give up the tradition of a live tree? I guess part of the struggle for me has to do with the fact we are cutting down our own trees now. Sad to say but it's a lot easier to not consider a tree as a living entity--and to justify the desire for the smell of a live tree for Christmas when you don't see its growing place among all the other pines. But all that aside - I have made my peace with our decision and I've spent the better part of my time these past couple of days decorating the tree. Good times.