meet Harold.

we had a beautiful weekend here. it was sunny, it was warm enough to be outside during the day in just a sweatshirt or sweater, but there was enough of a chill in the air to make you remember that it is December and Christmas is coming. it seemend like a perfect day to get our Christmas tree!

last year, we used the artificial tree that i had in my apartment. it was tall and skinny and came complete with fake snow. i thought it was adorable, and it had plenty of room underneath it for presents, but my sisters made fun of it when they came to visit.

this year i convinced the hubs that a real live tree was the way to go. we weren't quite ambitious enough to go cut down our own at a tree farm, but we felt pretty qualified to pick one off a lot.

we looked around for a short time to find a tree that was the right height and nicely shaped. it was a relatively painless decision, and the nice guys who were working there whisked the tree away to wrap it up before i could even take a picture of it where it stood.

the hubs loaded the tree onto Sophie's roof, being careful to put down some old towels to protect her from scratches.

then i helped him tie it down nice and securely for the ride home.

on our way home, we took turns checking to make sure the tree was still attached to the roof. and then this conversation happened:

A: i think he looks like a Harold.
M: who?
A: the tree.
M: you cannot name our Christmas tree.
A: ...
M: it's too late, isnt it?

so our tree this year is named Harold. (it's safe because neither of us were planning on naming one of our kids Harold someday) we're not sure yet if ALL subsequent trees will also be named Harold. i guess we'll have to wait and see what next year's tree looks like.

as for this year's Harold, i have taken a lot of pictures of him. you could probably make a flip-book and see the progress. or you could just scroll down through the rest of this post and see the progression too.

i got the tree stand all ready for him while the hubs took him off the roof of the car.

we put him in the stand and made him stand up straight.

i let him "settle" for as long as i could stand to wait, and then i added lights...

...the bow on top and a tree skirt around the bottom... (which is actually a twin-sized flat sheet from target!)

... and all our ornaments!

his decorations are admittedly a little bit sparse. i can't help thinking that we could use something like hand-made snowflakes to fill in the gaps, with a matching angel for the top if anyone out there would like to get a head start on an idea for us for next years Christmas... (hint,hint,wink,wink)

the final touch for now was putting some presents under the tree! i finally unpacked the gifts that were sent home with us from Thanksgiving and was happy to see that the presents had all survived the trip. a few needed some minor wrapping paper repairs, but only one needed a major duct-tape wrapping overhaul.

doesn't he look great? dont you just want to come over and visit him? and of course us too... but i might totally understand if you just stopped by to say hi to Harold. he is really quite charming.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house... how about yours?