Christmas at 801

I'm a fool for Christmas decorations.  The tiny twinkle lights. The glittery baubles, even the fake snow flocked on trees and padded around vignettes. The rule in our house is firm, no leanings toward Christmas decorations, music or otherwise until Thanksgiving has been fully celebrated.  

This year we returned from visiting my mom in Seattle and almost immediately went out and purchased the largest Christmas tree I've ever owned. lovingly called, "The Whale."

Hubs rigged up the star to kind of balance in front of the top branches on The Whale since there was no room between the top branch and the ceiling. The Whale holds 600 mini multi-color lights, which seems like an obscene amount but it's just right. And we did learn that the generic version of the "magic eraser" will in fact clean the skid marks from a tree that is too tall off the ceiling. Its like nothing happened.

Joy to the World

I appreciate Thanksgiving and all but I admit it is also in many ways merely a gateway to Christmas. The very first order of business by way of welcoming the Christmas season is to watch the classic movie Christmas Vacation.  After that I'll start with a regular rotation of other favorites like The Holiday, Love Actually, Elf (the one Will Ferrell movie that does not make me want to punch him in the face), and A Christmas Story. Not because I like it all that much but because its what you do when its Christmas, you watch a Christmas Story. If you're really serious about it, you watch some portion the 24 hours of it on TBS because its awesome.