The Week the Christmas Tree Went Up

Well, we didn’t manage to paint the kitchen walls.

I know you’ve probably all been waiting anxiously all week for the magic moment when magnolia walls turn white, but nope, didn’t happen. Because Terry got that head cold I was complaining about last week. And I still have mine (STILL, people: STILL!), so basically the last thing either of us felt like doing was painting a kitchen. We DID, however, manage to get the Christmas tree up, so at least that’s something:

(It would obviously have been better if I’d hidden the cable for it before taking this photo, but I still have the cold and I’m just going to make that my excuse for everything this week, OK?)

The latest addition to the tree is this pretty little hummingbird ornament which my parents bought us in the Bellagio when we were in Vegas this year:

I loved the little hummigbirds we kept seeing when we were in California, so this is a nice reminder of both California and Vegas. We also have these guys, who were a gift from our friend Myra:

I really love the fact that the the tree, while still minimal enough to suit our tastes, is slowly starting to fill up with ornaments that have some meaning to us. Neither of us is particularly Christmas-oriented – in fact, until we moved to this house, we didn’t even OWN a Christmas tree, much to the horror of everyone who knows us – but I have to admit, I did enjoy getting out our little collection of ornaments, and remembering where each one came from. (Or WHO each one came from as the case may be…)

This one came from Terry’s mum, for instance.

And this one came from Sainsbury’s. I’ll never forget that magical day when I popped in for some milk, and… OK, OK, ya got me: not ALL of them can be deep and meaningful, can they? Some of them are just pretty. (And this one was actually photographed last year, because I forgot to take a new photo. THE COLD, remember? It’s OK, though: it hasn’t aged at all. Magic Reindeer don’t, do they?)

We also have another new addition to the living room, in the shape of this gigantic clock:

This has nothing to do with Christmas, obviously: it’s just a clock. We finally reached the stage where we were sick of having bare walls in every single room, and we were STILL totally unable to decide what we wanted to hang on them, so we thought, “Screw it, let’s just get a gigantic clock.” As you do.

And that’s what Christmas looks like in our house this year: pretty much the same as last year, but with an added clock. Now if we could just get rid of these colds, maybe we’d actually be able to enjoy it…