Maybe if you ignore it, it'll go away. This is a concept that many of us use in our everyday lives without even thinking about it. Whether consciously or unconsciously, it's there. Maybe it's the big paper that you should've started working on over a month ago, or that huge box of junk items that you'll eventually have to face, or maybe the last thing you expected to avoid: Christmas

A couple weeks ago, Dan & I kind of decided that we weren't going to get a tree or a bunch of decorations for Christmas. We hung a few lights in the apartment and that was it. It's not because we were purposely trying to be Scrooges, but because it meant more work and more money for things that no one else was probably going to see but ourselves. With being so far away from home and family it almost seemed like what's the point this year? Now grant it, that's not what we were saying, but maybe how we felt inside. - One of those, I don't want to think about it (being away) kind of thing. We figured we'd save all those goodies for next year. I'm not sure why, but that was our plan. It seemed to make sense then. Plus, Christmas without the freezing weather and snow just seems weird. Haha.

But once the gifts that we ordered for our families started arriving in the mail, and we had to get ready to prepare them to ship out, we started easing more into the Christmas mood. While we were out and about last weekend, we decided to check a few places for trees for the heck of it.  Originally we were looking at fake trees...
    
Well, to make a long story short, we caved. Meet Douglas (our live Douglas Fir tree):
Isn't he lovely? He's Dan's first REAL tree! 
  
We only have lights, 4 ornaments, & a star on Douglas this year, but I'd say that's a good start. It takes time to build up some great ornaments. And no tree skirt? That's okay! A small old red sheet works perfectly.

We are both so happy that we changed our minds! It just brightens up the place altogether. And here, the very thing that we were avoiding actually made us feel closer to home. We are much more welcoming toward the holiday now, and we're excited to combine our family traditions into our own. <3 Thank you to everyone who encouraged us to give into the holiday spirit. It was totally worth it. :)
As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is. - Eric Sevareid 



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