Christmas Decorations

So here's the view of the front of our house. Heretofore we haven't bothered with Christmas lights, but it's something to aspire to.

And here's my pretty dining room:

I accidentally unscrewed my light wrapping the garland around!

The little swirly tree is new, I may just leave it up all year.
Below you can see the little Christmas tree that I've had since I was a child.

I love our pre-lit artificial tree. I definitely think the real ones are far superior in many ways, but right now this is soooo easy. John ducks down into the basement, grabs the box, and 10 minutes later we have a tree--and it's lit! I think next year Jeffrey will really enjoy picking out a tree and cutting it down, so maybe we will start visiting a tree farm next Christmas. Then we will have the scent of the living tree, which is the one thing I really miss right now.

My mom sent me these cute snowflakes for my first married Christmas. I think they're really cute.

This shot still counts under the heading of "Christmas Decorations" because there is a duck in a snowman suit on the end table there. The main purpose of the shot, however, is to show our new-to-us couch. We got it for $40 because of some pet damage which can't be seen from the photo. The damage is quite obvious in person, but I wanted to see how my kids and dog would treat this leather couch before I invested any real money into a nicer one.

Okay, there's no Christmas decor in this shot, but while I was taking pictures of the living room, I thought I'd take one of our new lamp as well. It came in an itsy bitsy box from Ikea, and I didn't bother opening it because I kept waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive, but, you guessed it--that was it! Fortunately I have John so I didn't have to hurt my brain trying to figure it out.

This piece of furniture has been very multifunctional. We've used it for everything from a TV stand to a game cupboard. Right now it's our computer desk.