In the mood...

It's been a busy morning...

As I had mentioned, I hit a bit of my holiday panic the other day but I am starting to feel a bit better about the whole thing. This morning I added some new decorations to my collection. For the last three years I have used blue and green only. I wanted to use purple and gold this year but as Os pointed out to me, in this part of the country those are Viking's colors, not Carroll's colors. Instead of strictly purple and gold (which would have meant buying all new decorations) I simply added purple to my green and blue. I picked up a couple limey green pieces and a string of turquoise beads for something a bit different.

I talked my boyfriend into helping with the actual decorating by agreeing to put the tree up myself. I had never had an artificial tree really until I moved to Minnesota. Growing up, we usually always got a real one. However, in my first rental here, I wasn't allowed to have a real tree. I was very bummed by the idea of no fresh pine tree. But, I found a very lovely tree which is easy to put together, full, and looks nice. I never had house cats before either. I have found they like to climb up inside the tree and it is much easier to replace a branch then pick sap out of kitty fur :)

This morning I have the tree up and "settling". To make up for the lack of a fresh pine tree I bought a bundle of boughs and arranged them on my mantle (my fireplace is bricked in so no fire risk with fresh pine dangling over the edgy) and swirled lavendar and silver wired ribbon through it with a three tiered candelabera in the center. I'll post some pics when I get the candles going.

The ornaments are laid out, the tree is up, the mantle finished, the floor swept, a bag for Toys for Tots in the car, and now I'm off to the office to make some cards for the troops in Iraq. A local high school is sponsoring Hometown Gratitude with a mass shoebox mailing planned for next week. Figured I could add the cards to the pile so they have some greetings to send too. Tonight, my boyfriend and I will get the tree sparkling and maybe snap a few pictures.

Happy Holidays!