Ho, Ho, Humph

Christmas has officially arrived at Marriage Confessions.  Can you see it snowing on my blog?  I thought it was appropriate to make it snow online since it was snowing here most of today.  Gosh, I love this time of year.  Like, yesterday morning when I woke Chris up at 7:3o in the morning to hang Christmas lights outside and he told me he’d rather pull every single hair out on his head one at a time than hang Christmas lights in the cold.  Or, today when we were putting up our Christmas tree and I had Christmas music playing loudly and yet I could still hear Chris cussing in the corner as he tried to strategically place the branches on our fake tree.  Or, tonight when I was wrapping Christmas presents and Molly kept stealing every single bow that I taped to the presents and so I had holes in the center of all the wrapping paper.

Yeah, I love the holidays.  

But once I saw the finished product, I remembered why I love Christmas.  Yesterday we spent all day putting up the lights outside because we knew it was supposed to snow today.  This was the first time we’ve ever had lights on the outside of our house.  We have been thinking about it for weeks actually.  What kind of theme did we want?  Would be go color or white lights?  Here is what we came up with.  I am really happy with it.  I think it makes our house look cozy.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6531012555269272223&hl=en]

This morning we woke up to snow covering our neighborhood.  It was so beautiful!  Looks so different than New Haven did when it was covered in snow.  New Haven was all cement and buildings, but our neighborhood is all trees and yards, so the snow really sticks good.  The dogs loved it, too.  Except for Lucy.  She’s so low to the ground that she doesn’t like the snow touching her belly.  She’s fat, in case you didn’t know.  

After we played in the snow all morning, we went in to decorate the inside of the house.  We spent the day untangling lights and talking about our favorite Christmas gifts from when we were kids.  Chris’ was a bowling game he got when he was little.  Mine was a picnic table set with red leather seats.  We were livin’ large, let me tell you.  Chris also introduced me to the best Christmas album ever – the Carpenters.  It was amazing!  All my favorite Christmas songs – even the Nutcracker (which I danced in the living room for Chris).  It was a pretty good way to spend the day and ring in the holidays.

(A side note about this nativity:  Every year I say that I am going to buy pieces of this nativity set after the holidays and every year I never do it.  It has been my favorite nativity for years.  I think its so simple and beautiful.  And this year, Chris gave me the entire set for my birthday last week!!  Isn’t that a thoughtful gift?!?!)

(If you grew up in the South, then you had at least one of these ceramic Christmas trees in your house somewhere.  I felt like a true grown up when I got mine.  My mom made it for me herself two years ago.  And I haven’t lost ONE LIGHT BULB YET!!)

So, that’s how we rang in the holidays at our house this weekend.  And I’m glad we finished when we did cause I could see the glimmer in Chris’ eye and he was about to flip his lid over the tangle lights and garland.  

And we all know if you lose your cool over Christmas decorations, Santa docks your Christmas presents by 10%.