Too Many Ornaments?

I showed restraint this year. I only used about 3/4 of our Christmas ornaments, decided against the red bows and left off the golden beads. All in all, it's still, a pretty "full" tree.

It is one of our family traditions for the kids to decorate their own tree. Normally, they've used a small, 3 foot tree. I was able to find a 6 foot tree for under $25 at Target this year. They had access to their own ornaments and to my "leftovers" in addition to the spare bows and strings of beads. They didn't use my leftover ornaments, nor my bows but they did partake to one strand

of golden beads for their garland. Their tree is beautiful in it's simplicity.

Animated plush ice skating Peanuts characters and Storytime Bear (The Night Before Christmas) courtesy of the kids' Great Aunts Mary and Irene. :)

Black Friday

I have never shopped on a Black Friday. I have an aversion to massive crowds, short tempers and rampant commercialism in what is suppose to be a most sacred time of year. However, yesterday, we changed our minds. I had seen, online, a door buster special on pre-lit Christmas trees at Home Depot. Our old tree is falling apart and we've been talking about replacing it for several years now. It was a good tree and served it's purpose well during most of our 17 year marriage. Anyway, I searched the Thanksgiving newspaper circular but there was no mention of this special deal. Would they have them in stock? Was it worth getting up early for? Would there be huge and nasty crowds? We decided to try our luck. There we were, at 5:45 a.m., entering our local Home Depot store. And there they were...7 1/2 foot pre-lit Christmas trees for only $49! This bargain shopper and her frugal husband were very happy indeed. And you know something? No crowds. Beautiful.