Finally, Well

I feel so much better today! This flu bug has been a rough one to kick, and I still feel the residual soreness and aches, but, I am better.

Thought I'd pop in quickly to catch you all up on the "hurry up and wait" status of the Casa de la Vanderdogan Christmas decorating extravaganza. I should first tell you that Scott is Jewish - and a Christmas Tree is something he and his family never had. I will also tell you that Scott purchases most of the Christmas decorations in our house ... go figure?

When I was growing up, we had a modest tree. Never live, and always lit with multi-colored lights. My mother was a more is more kinda girl, and she always thought that Christmas needed to be bright and colorful. We would spend time as a family, hanging the tiny paper mache apples on the tree, along with all the ornaments my brother and I had made in school throughout the years, and our father would adorn that colorful and oh so hap-hazard tree with a foil star, every year, Thanksgiving night.

Fast forward 19 years, and a few states later, and I'm picking up some of my mothers tendencies: I'm a more is more kinda guy, so layer, layer, layer I say, and our trees are also never live, mostly because I happen to be allergic to almost every evergreen imaginable! I also decorate much earlier than we did when I was a child. Why? Well, my friend Dorothy had a lot to do with it ... she says: "It's so beautiful, the longer you wait to put it up, the fewer days you have to enjoy it." So, I start the first of November. Last year I added a tree to the Casa de la Vanderdogan line up:

Remember this? Well, it's still here - a little different this year - but not by much. If you were around the blog back in December of 2008 - you'll remember that the reason for this tree was to fit into the "cabin in the woods" feeling that Scott wanted. I think I kept that feeling this year, even through the major change to the mantel, which I'm excited to share with you all very soon! Of course, we have the dining room Christmas tree:

A 9' tall collage of gold and bronze. (Photo from last year) This was, until now, my only deviation from the white lights I came to love. Never, since I was a child, had I used colored lights to decorate the tree. These are frosted gold lights from the Phillips Decorator Series. With the third tree, completely new to the line up this year, I might just go for a purple light or two. Why? That's a secret, kept under lock and key, but I will tell you that I am waiting ever so impatiently for feathers, 700 of them in fact! Curious? Keep checking back in.