#56: Christmas at My House

We finally got around to putting up our tree yesterday! We've always had an artificial tree (we actually have two!), thanks to mom's allergies. I'm going to be honest though, I don't really mind. We had one last year (we found one mom wasn't allergic to), but it was such a pain, so I'm glad we're back to artificial this year. J and I plan to purchase an artificial one this year after Christmas (hopefully on sale!).

Mom always does something amazing with our tree! We decided to put up the smaller tree (6.5') this year because of space issues, but I think it looks great! Mom did a shelf effect this year (she did this a couple years ago as well and it was a HUGE hit with all the visitors to our house!). It looks a little different than the larger tree would have, because there's one less rung of branches on the smaller tree. Let me know what you think! (And it'll look totally different after all the presents are underneath it!)

Mom put large gold and burgundy ball ornaments on each "shelf" and there's also a large bow on each shelf. But what you can't really see is that there's fruit on the tree as well! There's actually fruit on the ribbon Mom chose, so she decided to go with it and put fruit on the tree itself. Don't worry, it's not real...that would be weird. It's actually sparkly-looking pears and bunches of red grapes. It looks pretty darn cool, if you ask me. Little monster is enthralled by the lights; every time he walks by, he points and says, "tree!" What a cutie patootie.

Mom doesn't do the whole candy cane, Santa, reindeer, snowman Christmas decorating that most people do. She classes it up and does huge arrangements of poinsettias everywhere. Love it.

Here's a backstage photo: (our store room):

(We're not hoarders, I swear! This is just what happens when there's eight people living in one house. And I have a feeling it's only going to get worse once I start acquiring more things for our apartment...)

Now onto the fun part! I posted on Facebook a couple days ago that I was making my own gift tags this year! It was fun, but not as easy as I thought...

I cut white cardstock into 1.5" x 2.5" pieces until I had a pretty good pile of them. Went to Target and bought a pack of four sharpies (black, green, red and blue because all my wrapping paper is white, red and green).  Then I got my handy dandy post-its out for a little practice. Thankfully, they went out with the trash today, so no embarassing outtakes to show you. They were bad though, let me tell you. The holly leaf didn't make the cut to the gift tags, but I did successfully draw two candy canes! It was a fun project! Here's a couple of previews:

I thought it was fun, cost-effective project because Christmas gift tags can cost so much money! I'm pretty sure I'll get a little more creative next year (maybe pull out a stamp or two and ink them on), but for a first try, I think I did pretty well (and J isn't the only creative one of us two!).

What do you think? Did you have any DIY projects for Christmas this year? Do you even have your presents wrapped?