Feeling Festive.

So this is my first tree. Not bad, I say (although it does seem a bit hard to see in the photo). Some of the ornaments were from my grandmother, others from my sister, others from the Cost Plus sale rack (a very good deal). Lights and garlands are from a holiday-obsessed friend with spares. You can't really tell, but the lights are all red. So I call it the Satan tree. It works for now but eventually I would like LED lights that are colored, they don't use much energy and I grew up with colored lights so this solid color thing is new to me. Also it looks like I will be waiting until the after Christmas sales to get a star. Because the star needs to be right. Can't stick just anything up there. So I can be patient. A little bit patient. At least I have a tree, and it's a very nice tree. Especially for my first tree of my very own.



Here is my unqualified success of a Christmas amaryllis. People ask me if it's fake, it is so unbelievably awesome. If you look closely the flowers look like they have glitter on them. That's right, my flowers sparkle. No joke. It is awesome.

The past couple of days have really put me in the Christmas spirit. Thursday my band went and played Christmas carols at old folks homes, we did sing-alongs and whatnot and they seemed very pleased to see us. Then Friday night we crashed a cookie exchange and ate a bunch of free Christmas cookies. Saturday we drove to California for a family Christmas party. These guys are professionals. Every square inch of the house is decorated and there are things that light up and sing and blink and do all sorts of stuff. So it is inspiring and also brings me down to earth a bit. I am not in Sandy's league. She is the decorating queen and there is no need for me to go to that extent (unless I want to, of course). And not for my first Christmas.

And tonight was band practice for our Christmas eve church gig, we get to do all the nice songs that people don't know the words to (no Rudolph this time). So I am feeling properly festive now!

AND, remember how I was saying I needed people to be festive with? My in-laws are less festive than I am so it has boiled down to them doing Christmas eve dinner with family and friends, me doing Christmas morning with only family and then me also doing Christmas dinner with family and friends. That means breakfast for six (I get to make my Dutch Baby after all!) and dinner for 10 (turkey and apple pie, nice and traditional and not too fancy). I'll probably post more about the meal later, with recipes and probably not pictures (I forget to take them when cooking projects are occurring).