Finally, our once naked Christmas tree has at least most, though not all, of our ornaments on it. We managed to get a tree last weekend, even though the live Christmas tree pickings this year have been dismal, but then we had to let it rest so it would stretch its branches. Of course, that meant that decorating had to wait until after the weekend, and it was back to the grind for DH and moi. Last night, we popped a cork of beaujolais and got to decorating. I still have most of the house decor-stuff to put out, and just when I was ready to give up last night we found another box full of ornaments, so those will have to wait until this weekend, but the tree is now looking like a real Christmas tree finally!

One of the cool parts of putting up our tree is rediscovering all the cool ornaments we have, many of which have memories tied to them, like a funky one my niece made out of a juice bottle. Yes, she’s in college now, but I still hang it up. It was, at one time, her master piece, so why not? Along with the odd hand-crafted ornaments like this one, I have a lot I have also made over the years. One year I went really wild and made a lot of beaded ornament covers like the one pictured above. They still are one of my favorites because you have so many options with them by just changing out the beads and even the color of ornament underneath it. Plus, they only take about an hour to make, which considering this is done using bead weaving techniques, that’s a blink of an eye!