Christmas has arrived.........

our household has been abuzz with the spirit of Christmas, for the past 3 days.

We had already done the outside decorations but as soon as Thanksgiving was behind us, the inside decorations came out and since then we've been completely immersed in everything Christmas.  From tinsel to stockings and trees and hot cocoa....to nightly drives to see how the other homes have decorated for the season, and in between all this, a plethora of Christmas movies.

The Search for Santa Paws, The Polar Express, The 12 dogs of Christmas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Elf and many more to come.

Have you put your tree up?

For years we've had an artificial tree, one of those 7 feet tall with the lights already attached.  It's worked for us but this year we decided that we really want to create memories for the kids, we want to go all out and do a traditional Christmas tree.

So as I mentioned yesterday, we're heading out next weekend to cut down a real tree, but for the meantime we thought, why not put out the artificial one and throw just a few ball ornaments here and there, a plain star on the top and leave it like that until we get our other one.  Once that one comes into the home, this one will go outside as a decoration for the yard.

But just like normal Christmas lights, you put them away while still working and then pull them out the next year only to find that they don't work anymore, nothing lights up. 

We spent 2 hours taking the lights off the tree, I don't know WHO came up with this design but let me tell you, it's ridiculous.  Those lights were wrapped around each branch and then around each other and through each other and knotted together and by the third branch we were actually cutting them off.

But off they came, the tree went up and we took a quick break to watch a movie, while I stranded together some popcorn for a garland.

I want to keep this Christmas simple, with simple decorations, just like it used to be many years ago.

So here's our tree, or should I say, our temporary tree.

Of course my Christmas Village had to go up too, matter of fact is the first inside decoration to be put together. 

I love it so much and I often walk by and just stand there for a few minutes, just looking, imagining it coming to life.

Every year I add to it, one more little house, one more little tree, one more little scene.  I'm always on the lookout for the perfect piece to join the collection.

Our advent calendar is also up and ready to be filled on On November 31st. 

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what will go into this one this year, so if you have any ideas, feel free to post them in my comments, I would love to have some new ones.

So there you go, that's what we've been up to the past few days, that and my new bloggy template which I threw together rather quickly this morning.  Makes me feel like I'm in that little house, in the middle of a snow covered mountain.  Ahhhhh!