The Mystery of the Missing Ornaments

Can you believe all of our Christmas things made it here with only one ornament casualty? After the mess with our piano and our cuckoo clock, I was a little apprehensive wondering what we'd find when we opened the boxes of decorations. But one broken ornament is a blessing for sure. The only thing we weren't so happy about was that the girls were missing all of their ornaments. They each have their own box of ornaments that we've added to each year and they just aren't here. Our best guess is that they're with our things that are in storage right now. However, without all of those things, we were worried that our tree would be looking pretty bare. 

Somehow it took all stinking day to decorate one average-sized tree. Part of that was because we slept in and part was because we ended up going out three separate times to get more lights and ornaments. We had two functioning strands of lights and several that were only half-lit and ended up in the bin. We thought five strands of lights would be enough so we bought three more, but in the end, we needed six strands to get the tree looking how I like so another trip to the store was in order. After Abby got all the lights on the tree - and did so perfectly in my opinion - we still needed a few more ornaments to fill in some of the empty spaces on the tree. While Samantha was at her tennis lesson, Natalie and I went searching for some ornaments that would not only cover some of the big empty spots between the branches of our tree and also fill in for the ornaments that we're missing this year. We wanted them to look as if they belong with the ornaments we already have, not be too expensive, and be nice enough that we'd want to add them to our tree in years to come. We also wanted to add a garland of some sort. It's something I've wanted to have on our tree forever but have never found exactly what I'm picturing in my mind. 

Natalie and I were successful in our search. We went with a two-inch-wide red burlap ribbon for our garland and I'll continue to hunt for the garland of my dreams in the future. Maybe I'll find it someday. We also got some evergreen picks at Hobby Lobby that almost exactly match the branches on our tree. They're actually kind of perfect and have made me a lot happier with how the tree looks overall. We also bought eight large-ish baubles and a few other things to get those branches looking festive. 

Our tree has been our tree forever. We bought it twenty-two years ago and it's fit in every house we've lived in. Normally I am not a fan of how this tree is assembled. Instead of branches that are anchored to the trunk and then simply fold down like most artificial trees, our tree has individual branches that have to be put in place at each level with little color coding dots on the end of the branch and the corresponding spot on the trunk. It makes it a beast to put up, but it's made it so that we can put up half a tree in homes where space is a little more limited. This year we have the front half of our tree put together and placed right against the wall. I kind of like our little semicircle tree. 

When I came home from tennis lessons and ornament shopping there was a surprise waiting - a beautiful forest of trees from my brother John! He enjoys woodworking and had made himself a set like this for his own home out of scrap wood and leftover stains from previous projects. I love them and I think they are such a beautiful addition to Christmas in our house. 

Another thing that took a lot of time was deciding what to do with all of our nativities. Normally they find a space on top of the piano as well as on the bookshelves, the fireplace mantel, and on the windowsill. This year we're without a piano and a mantel so we had to make most of them fit on the bookshelves which required us to say goodbye to some of our books for the time being. There are a few others scattered about on the sewing table, the kitchen windowsill, and on the TV stand. Our nativities are my favorite thing to unpack each year at Christmastime and I was so grateful that they all made the journey here undamaged. Merry Christmas!