Only 15 days till Christmas...

Our Christmas tree!
This is our first official year to have an artificial tree. I was not happy about going from real to artificial, but it was just more economical for us and with two kids, much more convenient. I truly prefer a real tree and do not think our days of real trees are over. I like a fresh cut real tree from a tree farm. I like to go out in the cold, walk around and pick out the best one and cut it down ourselves... till we can do that again, I guess we'll stick to the artificial.
I have a lot of simular ornaments (2 or 3 of a kind) because those are what started our collection, but now I only buy/make one of a kind. My tree doesn't have a theme, just snowmen, santas, gingerbread men, snowflakes, nutcrackers, Christmas balls, anything Christmasy. I like ornaments that we can reminise about through the years.
My mom is very themy, she likes everything to match and one year we even had a tree with country ducks on it, country duck lights and country duck stockings to match- can you imagine that?

The kid's Christmas tree, its not complete we add new things/ornaments to it each day, including our Jessie Tree ornaments.

Here are some of my favorite ornaments:

This one me and Maximus made last year from a light bulb and one of his baby socks :)

I love this one! It was given to me by Tara a few years ago. I love that its personalized with our names (River wasn't born yet).

This one Maximus picked out from the store. He said it looked normal (that's his version of familiar or reminds him of) because I like to bake cookies.

This is one that we made this year from a glass ball, sticky letters and snow. We made a few different ones that say 'Love', 'Hope', 'Dream', and 'Believe'.

Oh and my childhood favorite! I got this in 1986. When I was a little girl I use to pull it out and dream of being a Sugarplum fairy- and I still do!

When I say Only 15 days till Christmas, I don't say it with stress that its almost here, I say it with stress that its almost gone.

I love the warmth that Christmastime brings to our house and am not ready for it to be over!