O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,

how much you make me smile!

I absolutely love the look of our decorated Christmas tree when all the other lights in the room are out. LOVE it.

Since last year's Thanksgiving Day experience, we decided to start a tradition while we live overseas (and don't generally have Thanksgiving Day off to eat and spend with family). On Thanksgiving Day (or evening, actually) we put up our tree and eat pizza for dinner. Then we celebrate "real" Thanksgiving on Saturday with others who had to work, or had to go to school or language class, or for whatever other reason were unavailable for a real Thanksgiving feast on the fourth Thursday in November.

This year, however, we didn't stick to tradition. A tradition that only started last year, actually, so I'm not sure if it's officially a tradition or not yet. Anyhow, this year we put up our tree on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Shannon, Lane, and I were all home sick. We all felt awful. I think I felt the worst, since I had just contracted the cold on Tuesday, whereas Shannon and Lane had gotten it the previous Friday, but still, the point remains: we were all home and all felt like doing nothing. So we decided to have our "Thanksgiving Day tradition" on Wednesday instead of Thursday. We put up our tree. We listened to Christmas music. We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas while putting the tree up. We let Lane help hang ornaments and lights. I made homemade pizza for dinner. We set out our nativity scenes, put out all of our fun Christmas stuff, and hung schizophrenic blinking lights in Shannon's office (as opposed to on the tree...our only colored lights are insane and blink and chase and altogether drive me batty. So they're not on the tree this year [by the way have I mentioned my opinion on colored lights as opposed to white lights on Christmas trees? No? Colored lights are WAY better...there you go]).

And we haven't stopped smiling since. Christmastime makes me happy. Our Christmas mugs from Poland make me happy when I drink tea or coffee out of them. Holiday candles make my nose happy. Watching Lane tote our stockings around the house makes me grin from ear to ear.

And once again, I'm ever so grateful that we paid that $200 to check an extra bag full of our Christmas things. Ever. so. grateful.