Deck the Halls

Who says it's too early to start decorating for Christmas?  One of the radio stations here in Chicago started playing carols just after Halloween... Our town hung Christmas trees and lights on all the lamp posts last week... And we've already had snow.  The signs are all around us!

Anyways, Bruce and I have holiday fever this season.  The combination of having a toddler and our first real home is just too exciting.  At Halloween, it was all about pumpkins and trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  Since we always spend Thanksgiving at our families' houses, we're already looking ahead to Christmas.

Bruce loves shopping for presents, so he started that a few weeks back.  Now he also relishes in delighting our daughter with all the merriment.  This is the first year she's really able to appreciate the festivities.  She gleefully notices Santas and Rudolphs everywhere.  For me, I love the traditions, family time, and domesticity.  We simply couldn't wait to put up the tree.  Plus, with my work at school and the store, Bruce's work and school, holiday parties and other social events, we weren't really sure when we'd have another opportunity.

Yesterday, Bruce came home from work and put Christmas music on the stereo.  I made spaghetti with homemade 'gravy' and Italian sausage - one of Bruce and Emmie's favorite meals.  After that, we decorated for hours and hours.  In my head, I had imagined that it would be an enchanted evening, Emmie oohing and aahing over the ornaments while I delicately placed them on the tree.  Bruce would hang the (plastic) mistletoe and we'd kiss under it.  A halo of love would surround our family.

In reality, we had moments of that, but it was mostly a lot of this: "Emmie, no touch! Only look!" And, "Emmie, give that back to Mama, please!"  Also, "Emmie, be careful!" 

Haha.  It was absolute wonderchaos (a word I thought I coined, then Googled and found already existed.  Darn!).  Everything was so fun for Emmie, she kind of spun out of control.  New little toy-looking things everywhere! Must touch!

Still, we got the tree, ornaments, and decorations up.  All our things are lovely in the new house.  Last year, we received a lot of ornaments as presents, but had no tree of our own to hang them.  It actually stung a bit to receive them.  This year, they have a place to be displayed.  The sting is gone.

I've always dreamed of having a front window to feature our Christmas tree.

The final touch was to put the star atop the tree.  Then I poured hot glühwein (a tradition I've kept from visiting the Christkindlmarkts in Europe) into two mugs for Bruce and me.  We bundled up Emmie and went outside to admire our work.

Back inside, we had some pumpkin pie and put an overexerted Emmie to bed.  Bruce and I sat on the couch in the living room, relaxing and appreciating, while Minnie the cat settled in to her favorite spot under the tree.  The holidays this year are particularly special for all of us.