Getting Married: 26 Weeks – O Christmas Tree

I am fiercely possessive of my holidays. This might be because I was born on Flag Day (June 14th), but I really don’t like my holidays to mix. So when Christmas decorations start coming out before Halloween, my hackles start to go up. I will not abide Christmas music before Thanksgiving. When I lived in Japan, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, naturally, so Christmas season was just about two months long there. That was kind of hard for me to handle. I love Thanksgiving and want it to stand on its own. But that country has its own plethora of holidays that took some getting used to.

The day after Thanksgiving, no bars are held. It’s time for Christmas! Which means, putting up Christmas trees, lights, decorations, making Christmas candy, listening to Christmas music, watching Christmas movies – yes, mayhaps all at once. I had to work on Black Friday, which was a cake-walk at the bank, but Saturday, I drove up to Matt’s and convinced him that we needed to put up his Christmas tree.

I decided not to take my decorations up this year. I want to save that special Christmas for our first year married. But I definitely wanted to help Matt get The House ready for the holiday.

First, mood smell and lighting. Yum!

Matt’s accumulation of decorations…I brought the candy canes.

So many branches…

I enjoy colored lights, but there’s something crisp and pure about white lights on a tree. 🙂

I should probably dress up as a Christmas tree for Halloween one year…but I don’t like my holidays to mix.

Can you find Matt? Warning, it’s kind of disturbing.

His tree turned out lovely, albeit tame. I hope it can handle my decorations next year.

Sunday started off with a headache. The Christmas elves made it down to add some cheer to our sugar bowl, per norm. They always seem to be able to find us, even when we’ve moved houses. So fun.

I felt better in the evening by the time Matt came down to my home and helped us put our decorations up. Mom and I get pretty into it. We put on Scrooge with Albert Finney to love and enjoy. It’s a musical, naturally. We know every line, naturally. So do my sisters and their kids. It’s a family tradition.

I always feel like it’s not really The Christmas Carol without music and dancing…

Matt was gracious enough to help us bring boxes up from the basement, which has been one of my primary tasks. I was more than happy to let him take over that.

We have quite a few boxes…

I got the picture pre-skirt/pre-ornaments…but it’s so packed with stuff. I don’t think Matt knew what to expect when I told him I had a lot of decorations. Indeed, most of them are mine.

A lot of my decorations center around the Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys. It’s one of my favorite Christmas movies (along with It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, Prancer, The Bishop’s Wife, White Christmas, Elf, and more).

Most things in our house make noise at Christmas. Most things, therefore, have a funny story attached to them about how someone was frightened by it going off. This one is light sensitive and the story takes place in a bathroom, late at night. I’ll let you come up with the rest.

I think this is Mom’s favorite. My nieces gave it to her for Christmas one year and it quacks and dances to the Nutcracker Suite. Talk about Duck Dynasty!

The festivities moved on to work for Monday. Mom and I have put garland and lights up on the little fence out front in the past, but we decided not to mess with it this year. My bank branch opened early this year, so we have no decorations just yet, and Mom let me borrow the garlands and lights to put up at work for this year until we can get some of our own. I had a lot of fun doing it.

I bought this tree at TJ Maxx a few years ago and love it. It’s so fun and bright! I added the ribbon at the bottom.

With a little finagling and some command hooks, we have a sweet holiday complement to our teller windows. We’ve since replaced a broken strand of lights and now it glows as well.

The assistant manager also went out and picked up some little trees and poinsettia to decorate. Our regional manager came in yesterday and told us that she absolutely loved what we’ve done. I was so pleased.

Have you finished your decorating? Do you have a family tradition, like toasting the tree? We’ve not had many resources in the past, so we’ve come up with our own traditions a little off the norm, but just as meaningful.

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I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!