A Little Christmas Spirit

This year we pulled out our Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. It brought some much needed Christmas cheer into our home. 

We have a few odds and ends we decorate with, but our two big decorations are our Christmas tree and our nativity. Alison does most of the work setting up the tree. A few years ago we invested in an artificial tree. I help her get it set up and make sure all of the lights are working and then she gets to work on the ribbon she wraps around the tree. 

While she works on the tree I get out of the nativity. Alison brought this nativity home from her semester abroad at the BYU Jerusalem center. It is one of our treasured possessions. It is a really beautiful nativity that brings lots of joy. 

It doesn't take long for me to get out the nativity and our other decorations. Then I help Alison with the tree. She decorates the portion of the tree that is visible from inside our house with her silver and gold decorations. As always our tree is looks amazing. I work on the other side of the tree. There I placed the ornaments that we have collected from our travels. Every year it is fun to get out these ornaments and talk about some of our favorite memories. It is a fun tradition. When we have kids we will probably have two trees - one that Alison can decorate beautifully and one the kids can decorate. Our travel ornaments would go on the kids tree. 

We did a few more Christmas activities the rest of the post-Thanksgiving weekend. We put together a charcuterie that we enjoyed while we completed a Christmas puzzle. We also watched some Christmas movies and completed our Christmas shopping. 

While this holiday season will be different than years past, we are excited to celebrate one of our favorite times of the year.