gallons of turkey soup. gone, all gone!

usually we trim our tree (a fake one because of sky's allergies) the first day or so of november. but since pants was gone and we were all a bit tired, we waited until this past weekend. so sunday night we got the boys bathed and pajama-fied, turned up the holiday music, broke out the eggnog (using the special glasses that sky calls 'holy grail cups' because of their shape), and got all ready for some tree trimmin'.
and that's when pants and i realized...we didn't have a tree.
we had taken down boxes and boxes from the attic, assuming some were filled with ornaments/decorations and some held the tree parts. but after digging through all the boxes...no tree. hmm. then we remembered that the tree had broken after christmas last year, and we had gotten rid of it. and hadn't replaced it yet. oops.
so instead we trimmed the mini-trees the boys keep in their rooms, and put up the other decorations. the next evening, pants came home with a tree purchased from the lovely home depot, and we are now ready for the holidays with our tree up and running:
for some reason, i get all martha stewart about the christmas tree. i like it to have a really pulled-together, matchy look - no homespun crafty or sentimental ornaments here (those all go on the kids' trees). the last few years i have done a turquoise, green, and silver theme, but wanted a change this time around. so we went for more of a rustic feel, with fake fruit in purples, reds, and gold, wooden beaded garland, and a rusted metal star on top. (i had gotten these all on clearance at target last year after christmas.) i did throw on some green shiny ornaments at the end, though - couldn't resist.

xoxo
velvet