It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We've been very busy getting ready for Christmas around here! I'm feeling a bit of pressure because of the short Christmas season this year, but I LOVE Christmas and I'm determined not to get grumpy or stressed about it.

We have decorated four Christmas trees so far (2 at my parents and 2 here) and finally finished decorating the house (after a frustrating search for my favorite tablecloth!). We start my favorite part today - baking Christmas cookies!

We broke down and bought an artificial tree this year. James HATES putting lights on the trees. He thought he was spared that misery this year with our new pre-lit LED tree, but our white artificial tree in the office had a bunch of lights out and our outside light strands were half out, so he still got to have the fully holiday experience!

We had extra colored lights since we didn't need them on the tree, so we wrapped them around the trunks of our big pine trees in the side yard. That looks truly classy, let me tell you!