We thought it was important to start a few of our very own family traditions this year and it started with our Christmas tree. Both Josh and I grew up having a real Christmas tree and thankfully we both agreed that we couldn't do it any other way - so, to the local nursery we went . . . It's amazing how wonderful it feels to be surrounded by all of those beautiful trees and the smell, ahhhh . . . the smell!! It didn't take us long to pick out our very first family Christmas tree and it's perfect!! Not too tall, not too skinny, not too fat, not lop-sided, no bald spots and so far, the needles aren't falling off. It fits so nicely in our family room that I almost want to keep it up all year!
Although our Christmas tree is beautiful and very festive, I wanted to fill our wonderful little house with as many decorations as I could . . . thankfully a trip back to Minnesota to my parent's house was planned in the near future (the surprise trip that Cayel and I made back the beginning of December) so I decided I would "shop" there. You heard me right, shop! Growing up I used to complain about all of the old "antique" junk my mom had and said I would NEVER decorate that way - well, now being the older (and much more mature :) adult that I am, I love the old antique feel of my parent's house and I love the warmth of it at Christmas time. Thankfully, my mom was thrilled (or honored :) that I would want to do my holiday decoration shopping at her house and she let me take freely. She had this adorable little potted Christmas tree on our front deck (made out of real evergreen branches) that was decorated with lights and berries - of course, I wanted one - to my surprise, she had an extra one in the garage waiting to be decorated. Sweet! In my front seat on the floor it went, ready to make the trip back to Spearfish with us. Now it sits decorated with lights and berries outside our front door which is also decorated with real evergreen garland and lights. It looks SO pretty . . . even Josh was impressed by the glow of our house when he came home from his hunting trip.
Another tradition that I thought I would try to start with Cayel this Christmas season is baking/decorating Christmas cookies. As a child, my mom used to pick a weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas when we would make a disaster of the kitchen and make tons of different cookies, chocolates and candies. Surprisingly, (between all of the visitors and the frequent trips this past month) we made the time to frost Christmas cookies. Thankfully, Grandma B did all the hard work (she baked the sugar cookies and sent them back to Spearfish with us) but Cayel had so much fun putting the frosting on them (speaking of frosting, I searched on-line for a creative recipe and it was HORRIBLE! Runny and tasted like nothing more than powdered sugar, if anyone has a special family recipe for sugar cookie frosting, I would love to have something to try for next year).
Now it's just a week away from Christmas . . . the house is decorated and festive, the Christmas cookies are frosted, the shopping is done, the gifts are wrapped and under the tree and a few new traditions and memories have been made - with a week to spare!!
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