Christmas Countdown Challenge--Day 22

Today was a good day! Julia and I stayed home from church all day because she still has a pretty bad cough/cold. I hate missing church, but they prefer you to keep your kids home when they're sick, and I don't blame them . . . a lot of stuff gets passed around in church nurseries, I imagine! I have to say that it was nice to sleep in a bit, though. :) I was able to straighten up the house a little this morning. Then after lunch, all 4 of us went in search of a Christmas tree. There's a tree farm just a few minutes away, where the trees were all $20. After paying more than twice that last year at another place, we decided to check this one out.

We like to get 7-8 foot tall trees, due to our high ceilings, and the trees at this farm were all on the smallish side. However, Jim found the perfect one--about 7.5' or so, and REALLY full.

It's probably the fullest tree we've ever had! And at such a good price. Yay! :) It took us all of about 10 minutes to find it, cut it, drag it to the truck, and put our money in the tin can (love the honor system!).


After we set it up, Jim decided to go out hunting for a little while. Julia took a nap, Sam played quietly, and I cleaned up some of the pine needles. Then Sam and I made our first batch of Christmas cookies--whipped shortbread--and were just finishing up with those when Jim came back. (No venison for us this year!)

After that, we decorated the tree and watched "Miracle on 34th Street" together. Our tree came out looking lovely. Here's a picture; it doesn't do it justice, as I haven't yet been able to get a good one without the flash . . . but you get the idea of how it looks, anyway. :)



Another accomplishment was getting Julia's stocking finished last night! It went together so fast, and I was really happy with the way it turned out. So girly and old-fashioned looking. :)

Here's a close-up of her name:


I couldn't remember if we had gotten Sam a stocking of his own last year or not, but when we pulled all of ours out tonight, we found that we had. Just a plain dark green plush one with a white cuff. Maybe I can put his name on it somewhere; we will see. Now we each have our own stocking, just got to figure out what to stuff them with! :) If Jim gets our woodstove in place before Christmas, we will hang the stockings off the wire screen in front of it. If not, I'm not sure where we will hang them.

So all in all, I'm feeling a bit more ready for Christmas, at least on the decorating end of things! We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm hoping to make some good progress on another homemade gift, maybe bake another batch of cookies, and start addressing Christmas cards.

Well, this post has gone on long enough . . . hopefully tomorrow I can do a little update on Julia and the new things she's doing at 7 months, as well as continue with the Christmas countdown updates.