It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house. If you remember back a few weeks, Alyssa couldn’t wait to get her Christmas decorations up. I made her wait until at least the day after Thanksgiving because I was “defending November.” Well obviously now that we are about two weeks from Christmas day, she has decorations up all over. The last thing to go up was our Christmas tree. We both wanted a real tree this year. We love the smell and there is just no way a fake tree can truly look and feel like a real fir. Monday night we went out in the cold to Storheim’s where we hmmmd and hawwwd for half an hour before finally picking the one we wanted. We loaded it in the truck, brought it home and I struggled with my dull hacksaw to cut the end off, but finally we got it in the stand. Since Alyssa was on call Tuesday night and we wanted to be able to have a glass of New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red while listening to Christmas music, we waited to decorate til Wednesday night. Since this was our first Christmas after marriage our ornaments are a bit of a mismatch. 
We picked up a few at Presents of Mine, a few at Hobby Lobby, a couple at Shopko, and so on.
Our tree topper is the best mismatch of all though. During our two years in Davenport we never had a true tree topper so last year I threw a trapper hat on top and called it good. After looking at the ornaments we picked up this year and seeing how they all fit a sort of ski lodge theme, we knew that the hat had to go back up.
Guardian of the Tree
So now it sits proudly up on top of our real Christmas tree waiting to guard the presents.
Now if only it could protect the skirt from Ellie.
Skirt Thief
Spring Dog This! 