early christmas

 with james' birthday celebration complete and persistent absence of plans or events, we moved directly into christmas decoration and music and celebration. before thanksgiving. which is what i always want anyway. 

we found a warm sunny saturday morning, and headed to the tree farm. 

the kids picked a very sweet little pine for the basement,

and i picked a full fir for the living room. 

david got down in the dirt and did all the chopping and sawing. he is the magician who makes everything work around here. that's just true. 

these two trees plus the small artificial tree decorated in the office/sun room feels like maybe we are STARTING to get close to the appropriate number of christmas trees. we aren't there yet, but it's a step in the right direction. 

we grabbed a wreath for good measure, and got the car all loaded up.

at home, we got down to decorating and really brought our A-game this year. our new neighbors are thrilled, i'm sure. 

now the basement has fulfilled its destiny: cozy cheesy wisconsin holiday bar vibes.

and the living room looks so good i may never ever take the tree down. 

and, to round it all out, we also bought all the working lights at st vinny's, and found this magical glow ball ("christmas light sphere" to be exact) that looks shockingly familiar to the biggest breakout celebrity of 2020....