It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yesterday was Boomama's Christmas Tour of Homes.

Unfortunately, I was way too puny to make the required effort to participate. So here I am, a day late to be sure, but ready to show you this year's fabulous decorations.

We start with an early dinner of Marybeth's Christmas Pasta.


Yes the picture is a bit blurry, but you can still see the lovely Christmas colors and imagine it's yummy-ness.

We then move to a quiet evening where L has spent almost an hour quietly playing with her Barbies (I love girls!) and K is diligently (and with much whining) working on her schoolwork so she can hurry along her Christmas vacation.


Here's the paper chain the girls spent yesterday afternoon making. I think it looks very nice hanging up there.


Here's our lovely Christmas tree.

What's that? You don't think that's a Christmas tree?

There is a story behind that tree. Back in November we started a budget - tracking spending, categorizing everything, and all that. So when it came time to think about a Christmas tree, I was trying to decide which budget category it ought to come out of. We started decorating one afternoon and got all the other lights put up and the stockings were already hung...umm...from the bar...with care, but we didn't have a tree. So I grabbed the ficus from upstairs and started wrapping it with lights. The girls soon got involved and we decorated it with our favorite ornaments and decided that we kinda liked it. So, for this year at least, it's our Christmas tree. Next year, we'll just have to add a category to the budget marked "Christmas Tree".

And lastly, here's a picture of our "mantle".

Merry Christmas!