(no subject)

I think it would be wrong to put up a tree this year and not have a special ornament for sweet Miss Reece.

So I rectified that situation immediately. I ordered this from Etsy. It's the first Etsy purchase I've made, but honestly, I prefer a handmade ornament to a mass-produced one any day. And this one is far less expensive than similar ones I've seen on other websites.

I can't wait to hang this on the tree!

(no subject)

My LJ got a holiday makeover, although it's not specifically Christmas. It's more of a winter/nature theme in general. I like it.

After the Green Bay/Carolina game, we'll put up the tree. Lance hadn't planned on putting it up until next weekend, but I talked him into doing it today. We usually have different schedules when it comes to the holidays. My family always put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving and took it down right after New Year's. He is used to putting up the tree in December and taking it down sometime in mid to late January. I can't wait that long to take the tree down...once New Year's is over, I'm ready to get over the holidays and get on with my life.

It's practically December anyway, so we might as well put up the tree. Besides, we had a very abbreviated Christmas last year, due to our overseas move. The tree went up 3 days before Christmas. I didn't even have time to bake cookies. I want to make up for that this year. I had hoped to be in Leavenworth this weekend for their Christkindlmarkt, but we didn't do that. So at least we're putting up the tree.

But first, I have a little cleaning to do.

***

I keep reading back over my archived entries from a year ago, to see where we were in our moving process. A year ago, we had moved out of our house and were living at the City Hotel in Geilenkirchen. Was that a year ago? In some ways, it feels like yesterday. This year has flown by in the blink of an eye.

I remember our last 2 weeks in that hotel. It was cozy. We watched a lot of BBC, since that was pretty much the only channel we had in English. I cooked some interesting meals on that tiny little cooktop we had in our kitchenette. I liked being able to look out the windows and watch the hustle and bustle in the streets below. I spent afternoons taking long naps and reading Suite Francaise. I also wandered out for a lot of walks, just trying to take everything in and stamp it on my memory before it was gone for good.

I miss that time. It was utterly chaotic and I was cautiously optimistic of what was in store for us here in Washington, but I miss Christmas time in Germany. And there was something particularly meaningful about it last year, since it was the last one.

(no subject)

The Christmas tree is up! We went a bit minimalist on the ornaments compared to years past. I am actually going to get rid of a lot of the more generic ornaments. Most of what we have on the tree has significant sentimental value to us, particularly the ornaments that we picked up on our travels throughout Europe. Our Paris ornament has a hole in the bottom just large enough to insert a Christmas tree light. This is the first year that I've actually done that, and it's so pretty that way. I love looking at the tree.

Reece is a bit tentative around it, but she had a little fun earlier spinning the Oslo ornament around with her nose. That ornament is on the bottom of the tree because it's made of wood. The more fragile ornaments are out of her reach.

I called my mom earlier because there was a Christmas song that I really wanted that I knew she had - The Mills Brothers singing "Here Comes Santa Claus". I love their rendition of that song. I had to walk her through ripping it off her CD onto the computer and emailing it to me. She managed to do it successfully, even though she had a few issues with her Windows Media Player.

Took Reece for a walk earlier. We went the opposite way from yesterday to avoid any more pit bull confrontations. At least Reece seems relatively unscathed by what happened. I still shiver when I think about it.

Well, I'm getting hungry. Time to make a big pot of spaghetti.