The quest for the perfect tree

Some might say I am long overdue in getting this post up, but I'm going to say that this is actually perfect timing. Because, you see, I have decided to participate - for the first time ever - in a blog carnival. In particular a bloggy tour of homes sponsored by The Nester. Hers is not a blog I typically follow, but some of the bloggers I do follow have linked to the Holiday Tour of Homes so I've decided to participate (even though I can't, for the life of me, paste that little bloggy button on here that I'm supposed to paste on here).

OK. Back to the beginning. Last Saturday, we set out on our quest for the perfect tree. Evan wanted to go back to the Big John's in the Ansley Mall parking lot, because once you burn both your "bird fingers" on a barrel with a fire in it, I guess it makes an impression. But, I convinced him I wanted to try this church in Decatur where I had seen really pretty trees. Plus, I just find it nicer to hand over a boat-load of money to a church than to a corporate machine like Big John's. I'm standing by that decision. The very first tree we were led to by the very nice man who helped us was "the one". We had to look at several others, of course, just to make sure, but we all felt the first one was it. Well - all of us except Corin. Tree No. 3 was his favorite, but he was outvoted. (He was later very bitter to have been outvoted since "the one" had the biggest trunk known to man and he had to spend hours whittling it down so it would fit in our extra large tree stand.) The very nice man was even kind enough to take a picture of all of us showing off [er, blocking] the tree.

Anyway, it was (and is) a beautiful tree. We had a nice time decorating it last Saturday night after the boys got it down off the top of the car and Corin spent all day putting lights on it (and on the junipers in front of our front porch and on the upstairs porch railing) while the kids and I were over at mom and dad's house taking pictures for the Christmas card.

The cutest thing about the whole decorating-the-tree-thing was what Evan did. We have these dinosaur ornaments that Corin's cousin sent a few years back (recalling that Corin was a big fan of dinosaurs as a child). Evan loves them. This year, he very carefully placed all the dinosaur ornaments. When he was finished, he had these three carefully placed on the bottom branches so that it looked like the T-rex was chasing the others. He was very proud of himself. Every time we walked by the tree, we would chuckle.

Here is the finished product: I tell you, it is not a very color-coordinated or any-other-kind-of-coordinated tree. Part of me would like to have a very nice coordinated tree, but the other part of me knows that, while my kids are little, this is the kind of tree that makes the best memories.

We keep our decorations pretty simple around here. I would love to be a bit more extravagant with my decorations, but I am fairly frightened of experimenting. And I guess a little lazy. Without a big budget for these sorts of things, I'd have to get creative - and that is one of those gifts I just did not end up with.

Here is the mantle with some natural greenery and the nativity that my parents gave us as a wedding gift. And the stockings I finally ordered last year after years (literally) of looking for a knit stocking that was not ugly. Corin and I had some really cute knit stockings before we were married. I think we bought them for our first Christmas together when we were dating. But there were only two of them, so when we started having kids, I started looking for replacement stockings so we could have four coordinated ones. I really wanted to have knit ones that were reminiscent of those we had in our early days together. Call me sentimental..... However, if I had known how hard it would be, I would have just bought four when we found those two long, long ago. But, then, Corin may have run away screaming about the fact I was buying stockings for our future children before we were even engaged, and then we might not have had the happily ever after ending to our story.

In recent years, Corin has started sticking the extra greenery that gets cut off the bottom of the tree in our sitting room bookcases. I really like the way it looks. This year we really went out on a limb and put some fake holly berries up there to sass it up a little more. Since we already have red accent pieces there, it really works I think.

Finally, and I don't know if this is cheating on the Holiday Tour of Homes, but I've included a picture of the way my dining room looked last year. I don't know how well you can see it in this picture: red table runner, silver candle holders with white candles, fresh greenery and fake red holly berries, red chargers, ivory linen napkins, and fun little jingle bell napkin rings. Oh, and what appears to be some deviled eggs and a cheese tray for good measure. I could have sworn I also had some sort of actual centerpiece, but it is not in the photo and I seriously can't remember what it would have been...

I have not done a thing to decorate the table this year. I love the runner and the chargers, so I'm sure those will make an appearance again this year, but the fresh greenery was a big mess - way too messy to remove when we put food on the table, so it was a bit inconvenient. Plus, we're fresh out of fresh greenery now that we've used it all on the mantle and the bookcases.

How do you decorate your dining table for Christmas? Or what suggestions do you have for me and my table? You can see my chairs are upholstered in red and gold, which lends itself to a nice festive table setting, but my creativity is limited this year - as are my funds!

Do click on over to The Nester if you are interested in seeing literally hundreds more homes decorated for Christmas -- without ever leaving the warmth of your house or getting out of your "lounge pants" (a.k.a. pajama bottoms). I love seeing how other people decorate for Christmas, so I think this is tons of fun.