..oh christmas tree..

..i love this time of year..

i love the decorations, the treats, giving presents, sh

opping, crafts, and the snow. i especially love that special Christmas Spirit that seems to be in the air. ev

eryone's hearts seem softer and more open to love of our Savior. what special time of year.

i'm also a HUGE fan of decorating the christmas tree. growing up we would have a family meeting about what our christmas tree was going to be like every year. we'd pick a theme and go to the store to get the things we needed. we'd do snowmen, silver and gold, cinnamon sticks, gingerbread men, candy canes, you name it we did it. i loved spending that time with my family. it was always fun to make the ornaments, watch my brothers hang them on the tree and then watch shannon go through and fix them.

obviously this year was a little dif

ferent because matt and i have

our own tree! matt humored my excitement and before thanksgiving was even here we went and bought our tree. we picked out 6 ft. skinny alpine. i love it! we went with a traditional green and red theme. it was fun to pick out and put up decorations with matt. i'm excited for when we have kids and can do it as a family.

these are some of the decorations around our apartment. last year matt got me the first part of the nativity scene i wanted. i get a new piece every year. i'm excited to get the next piece this Christmas.

matt and i decided that as part of our christmas traditions that every year we'll get a new ornament to put on the tree representing something significant that happened during the year. this year we got married and so when we went to disneyland for our honeymoon we got a mickey and minnie wedding ornament.

now that the tree is put together we're definitely ready for santa to come!