It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Patrick and I have made a deal. Since he worked at a gas station to get himself through school and listened to non-stop Christmas music from November through January, he has a no-tolerance policy regarding Christmas music before Thanksgiving. He actually wanted to extend the ban all the way until December, but I put my foot down; growing up, the day after Thanksgiving was the day we put up all the Christmas decorations. You cannot do that without listening to Nat King Cole, the "A Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack, and selections from the Nutcracker. So our deal was NO Christmas music until December, EXCEPT for the day after Thanksgiving. Sounds good to me!

So what did we accomplish? First of all, we set up our little two foot Christmas tree (now 10 inches shorter than Cambrie). It cost us four dollars total. Best investment ever! Every year we add one thing to our Christmas decoration collection, and after a few years of that, we've got a cute little tree!

Here's a close-up, including one of the pretty ornaments Patrick got me as a stocking stuffer last year.

The new Christmas decoration we got this year had to take into account our financial situation (aka unemployed), so we found something for $2.50:

A garland! Right now it's plain, without fancy bows or blinking lights, but I was excited to use it, so now it's a modest but cheery addition to "our" stairwell. (We live in the basement.) We also managed to hang our wreath. Patrick devised a hook for it out of a wire hanger and an over-the-door towel hook. Again, not the highest class, but I like it. I know it sounds strange, but it's fun being in this new-family-dirt-poor part of life. What new cheap or free solution will we come up with next?

Cambrie helped a lot, mostly by dancing to the Christmas music (who knew the Nutcracker was as dance-worthy to a 16 month old as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?) and reminding us to keep everything out of her ever-extending reach.

She also helped me write a message out of little beaded garlands:

Merry beginning-of-the-Christmas-Season!