The Stockings were Hung by the "Chimney" with Care

I spent Friday afternoon decorating our Christmas tree. It's three feet tall. I had bought it a week and a half earlier at Costco, just like the Christmases of yore. Ha!

Growing up, we would always cut down our own tree. Since I moved to the big city, I've mostly bought my Christmas trees from farmers' markets. This year, my husband is up to his neck with board week at work and finals at school and I'm up to my neck in pregnancy. I decided to respect our limits, so a tiny Costco tree it was.

Decorating it was a snap. It only took one strand of lights and I used our smallest ornaments to keep things in scale. The star we normally put on top of our tree was much too large, so I stuck an angel my late grandma had crocheted on top. It was meant to be a toilet paper cover, so it keeps flopping forward, but I love it anyway. I might even use it as a tree topper next year.

I spent some time Saturday wrapping all our presents. I hate theme wrapping paper, but Chuk brought this Christmas paper into our relationship years ago. Normally, I won't use it at all, but we were close to the end of it so this year, I was determined to use it up. I used it to wrap all of our presents, and wouldn't you know it, we still have some left! It's the loaves and fishes of wrapping paper.

I've finished my shopping, but Chuk has some more to do for his family. We're not exchanging gifts with them until January, so there isn't a lot of time pressure. We're spending Christmas in Texas and Louisiana with my extended family, so I expect he'll wait until the new year to finish his shopping. Hopefully, he'll get them large things so we can use up that darn Christmas paper.

As apartment renters, we don't have a fireplace, but last year I bought these JOY stocking holders after Christmas for 50% off, so our stockings are hanging from our bookshelf rather than a mantel. I wish I could hang the stockings from the bottom shelf, but the doors on the bottom half of the bookcase prevent that, so I'm just going to have to deal with them blocking the photos on the lower shelf.

The stocking on the right was made by my grandma, the same one who made the tree topper. I've had it since I was a little girl and I love it. It will always be my real stocking, but for display purposes, we're counting it as the cat's stocking. (We don't get our cat a present or anything for her stocking. So far, she hasn't noticed.) My mom got us the stockings on the left last year. I like them, but I still make Chuk fill the stocking from my grandma. It wouldn't be Christmas otherwise.

This year our decorations are very low key, but fitting for this season in our lives. I'm so glad we are able to have some festive decorations, but that it wasn't stressful at all and other than the $20 I spent on the tree, didn't cost us anything. Despite how busy our schedules are now, everything is so peaceful this year, it's hard to imagine that next year we'll have an eight month old celebrating its first Christmas with us. We can barely wrap our brains around it.

Linking to The Inspired Room's home tour.