Christmas at the Bullock's

We are all in the Christmas spirit over here. We've decorated the sugar cookies, we've made the candy, we've carolled, we've drank the cocoa, and we decorated the Christmas tree. I love this season. One of my sisters wrote about their tree and I wanted to do the same. First we got the tree last year for free from a friend who is a Christmas fanatic. She heard we had high ceilings and she couldn't use it, plus she already had two trees up at her house. So we ended up with a beautiful 9' tree. I got some LED lights on clearance at a going out of business sale. So those go on first. I put them on sparingly and I would love to have twice as many, but for now, it's great. Then we wrapped it in a red beaded garland, resembling cranberries, and a silver one for fun. Then we put on some pine cone ornaments we picked up at a dollar store a few years ago. Next we added some cheap bows we picked up at Walmart. To top it off "literally" we put a big bow that we got from Aunt Rachel. That's it. I think it's wonderful. We just recently went to a friends house and theirs is covered in decorations. It was very nice. On the way home the boys asked why ours didn't look like that. Suddenly I realized our tree would not win any competitions but I like it just the same.

So far none of the boys have tried to pull it down on themselves. YEA!!! Sometimes Brandis

likes to take a bow or a pine cone off and walk around with it but they aren't breakable and we can just put them right back up. We did have candy canes on it before we put the bows, cones, and beads up but the boys ate the bottom half of the decorations so we took them off and went to non-edible ornaments. It seems to be a much better idea. So I don't have a picture of the whole family in matching outfits or anything to send out a family Christmas card but maybe I'll post pictures of us on Christmas morning. We got our kids presents this year, not because of any chastisements made from my earlier blog where I said we never did and got back some great feedback, but because the kids know that Santa doesn't give the presents and that we were just being cheapies. So we decided to start a new tradition and give them presents and we're even going to fill the stockings. Whoo hoo!

So Merry Christmas from us. I hope yours is joyful and full of peace.