Tree shoppin' n' trimmin'

I am not one of those people who easily gets into the Xmas spirit. Since Tony & I have been together the last dozen years, we've only had 2-3 trees. Last year I bought a 10 inch juniper from Trader Joe's, but left the battery operated lights on overnight and only had one or two nights of lights.

But this year I've been looking forward to getting a tree for Maiya since she is older now. So this afternoon, after our weekly pancakes, we went to our neighborhood tree lot to get a tree. Maiya had a lot of fun running around and looking at the trees. We picked a small tree, just under 5 feet, for $24 plus a $10 base.

Once we got home, I went into the garage to look for my 5 crates of Xmas stuff, but only found 3 of them. But that was enough to trim the tree. Maiya unwrapped each ornament, one-by-one, enjoying all of the "vintage" Garfield and Snoopy ornaments, and the homemade ornaments, mostly from my cousin Jackie over the years. It was fun to see all of the ornaments dating from the late 70s to the mid-90s in my collection from the perspective of a 2 1/2 year old saying "wow" as she uncovered new treasures. Then there are the ones from the last few years with Maiya's baby pictures in them.

Ok, now that we have our tree up, it's time to order holiday cards, make a list of all the gifts I need to buy (I have given up the idea of making them), and get organized for all the toy donations and books for the kids in our childcare program, and get and wrap gifts for the 49 people on my staff. Augghh. Let the holidays begin.