Well, my friends, I am definitely feeling under-the-weather. My wish to get rid of this quickly has apparently been denied. I don’t have the energy to share much with you today. Trying to save money this year, I bought a faux wreath from Michael’s for a couple of dollars, added some trim and a big bow that I already had. Nothing earth shattering, but I can recycle this every year and that’s a good thing.

Oh, I just got a whiff of our Christmas tree – that must mean I am not totally stuffed up! I’m grateful for the little things, at this point. Have a stress-free day, everyone.

Boy, I am not a professional photographer – that’s for sure! I remember having the same trouble last year. I just can’t get a photo that truly reflects the way the tree looks. These are pretty good, but the colors are more vivid, the lights are more sparkly – you know what I mean. I took these last night as I tweaked the tree’s final look. Pardon the television – our tree is in the den, and our house is tiny. The lights around the window were my husband’s solution as to what to do with the end of the final string of lights.

Here it is in daylight. After gathering vintage ornaments for several years, we’ve reached the point where 95% of the ornaments are vintage and the rest are ornaments that were given to us as presents or are from my younger days. I hadn’t realized how I had unconsciously created my favorite palette of pink and aqua until I looked at finished tree. And the clear lights really add brilliance to the ornaments. We love it.

I tried this one with the tripod – which was one of the recommendations I read during a google search. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough yet about f stops and shutter speed to do anything more with these!

This is the ornament that is always put on the tree by both of us. It is our Winston ornament. Winston was our first dog. He left us too soon, at only eight years old, not that many years after we moved out East. We miss him everyday.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the tree!