so, after the major cleaning, up comes the christmas tree. i love the smell of a real tree! it makes the whole house smell fresh.

husband scott thinks that we have plenty of ornaments, but as far as i’m concerned there is no such thing as too many ornaments. ordinarily, i like a more clean and streamlined way of decorating. the more stuff one has, the more stuff one has to keep clean and dust free. but at christmas time, i do buy at least one ornament each year even though really i must put more than one ornament on a branch of the tree. because, i am always buying ornaments, i have an eclectic collection. the rule is that it has to make me smile. that’s all. there is no theme, no one color or style.

if you notice in the photo, there is a vacuum tube ornament brother john (& mary) gave me one year after heavily hinting how much i wanted one. one of john’s friends made some for him and, this is the part i like the most…you know…it made me smile, his friend picked out the vacuum tubes that looked the most christmas-y.

next to it is a jonathan adler turtle (please be my friend, mr joathan adler, please) and a hand painted egg from a trip to budapest, hungary.