We stayed in town for the weekend, for once, and decided to get a jump on our Christmas season. First up was picking out our tree, which involves the usual debate about how big of tree to get. We usually start out saying we should just get a 6 footer. Then we promptly start pulling out 8-9 foot trees that we think look great - which leads to the realization that our ceilings aren't going to move upwards suddenly - before we finally settle in on a 7 foot tree that usually just (and we mean just) fits. After that, we launch into a similar discussion on what size wreath to purchase as if this is the year that our front door is going to grow (it's growth is apparently tied to the ceilings). Anyway we found a great tree and wreath that made the short trip home without falling off the roof of the car - always a good sign.
Saturday we spent most of the day unboxing Christmas decorations and then semi-randomly distributing them around the house. It is semi-random, since some items go to the exact same spot every year while others enjoy the freedom to placed wherever they hit our fancy that year. It is always an interesting balance between keeping traditions alive versus doing something new and novel. We didn't quite finished in one day as we were also splitting our time with watching the college football conference championship games and Jo needed a tension relieving massage (work has been tough recently). We did get a start on getting the ornaments on the tree and, as always, most of the fun was reminiscing about where we got them from. Although, we have decided to start writing the locations on the actual ornaments, since our memories aren't quite 100% anymore - we had a really fun debate on one ornament that teetered back and forth between Sweden and Finland. What was particularly fun was that we each had a clear memory of where we purchased it, including the location and store, we just didn't have the same memory (and since I write this blog, it was Sweden - Jo was wrong)!
Sunday morning we felt the need to get some outdoor exposure, so we headed out for a 2 hour walk around the neighborhood, before buckling down and finishing the Christmas tree and the last few decorations. Then it was finally time to just sit back and enjoy our pine-fraganced house and decorated tree.
We had all the local relatives over for a Christmas brunch on Saturday. The definition of local has expanded to include Illinois since more of our relatives continue to move there from Wisconsin. We made our usual mix of egg based brunch dishes but included a vegan option this year for our niece. This was the first time we ever cooked with tofu and after finally finding it in the grocery store - I needed to ask, since it wasn't where I would have expected it to be - the dish turned out pretty good. At least in our humble opinion. As you might imagine, desserts figured heavily into the meal planning with monkey bread making its annual appearance. You just can't go wrong with bread slathered in butter, sugar, cinnamon, and a touch of nutmeg.
