it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Alex and I set aside this Saturday for Christmas decorating!!! Of course, this primarily revolved around selecting, setting up, and decorating the tree. So, this morning we set out for the Home Depot to make our selection. Chicago had it's first major snow last night, so a lot of the trees were coated in snow and therefore would be soaking wet when we wanted to bring it in the house.

Thankfully, the one we ended up with was under a covering, and quite dry :) It's about 7ft tall and filled up the space in our place really well:


After getting it in the stand, we let it dry for a little while. I worked on Christmas cookies and Alex worked on the rest of the decorations. When we were done with that, it was time for lights! You'll notice, these lights have white (i.e. super noticeable) cords. When I first selected these lights 3 year ago, it was my first time with a real Christmas tree and I didn't know you were supposed to buy the ones with the green cords so they blend in. Whoops.


After the lights we hung the ornaments - my favorite part :) So many of the ornaments have special significance and fun memories associated with them. Here's the finished product (minus the tree skirt):

We love it! Now our place looks really festive and we're feeling the Christmas spirit :)