It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We put up our tree this past Sunday. It always goes up the first weekend of December. I like to be able to look at it and relax every night. Something about the lights on it that soothes me. I sit in the dark every night and look at the lights and relax, pray, meditate. Anything to help me relax and get ready for bed. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't.

Believe it or not, but this picture was taken at like 2 in the afternoon. I keep the shades open all day and had one light on in the room, but it is still dark at times. Abby keeps playing with the ornaments. I find at least one or two on the ground every morning. We had one casualty so far, but it is an easy fix since I found the head to the poor penguin. One of my kids made this years ago. I am thinking it was Chantelle back in like kindergarten, but not sure honestly.

My little Rudolph reindeer that I have had since I was a child sits under the tree. It use to walk and play music while his nose lit u, but not anymore. I still like to keep him around though. brings back so many memories of when I was growing up.

This year, instead of putting up the count down to Christmas activity cards on the garland like I did last year,I just decided to pretty it up with lights, ornaments and extra candy canes. We have dubbed this garland "Abby's garland".

When I turned it on the first time, she ran into the basket (it's in the lower left hand corner of the picture) and started to check it out. She will lay in the basket and just stare up at it. When I turned it off the first night, she started to cry meow for a long time.

When I turn it on in the mornings, she runs up to me and then starts cooing at the garland. She doesn't have this kind of reaction to the tree, just the garland. It's kind of funny. Of course she has tried to play with the ornaments and the candy canes, but I just call out her name and she leaves it alone.

For the most part, the cats are good around the tree. Max just sleeps under it and will not let Abby stay under there for long, if at all. About time he stood up for himself and stopped letting Abby have her way all the time. Abby likes to nibble on the branches, eat the popcorn garland and of course, play with the ornaments. She loves these ones that my sister made for me. She took some ordinary blue ornaments and crocheted around them in different patterns.They are so pretty. I think Abby likes them so much because she can get her claws on them and pull them off. Most of the other ornaments are either shatter proof or too heavy for her. I do have stuffed animal ones around the bottom that I am okay with her playing with. They are all penguins too. I have a thing for penguins and the hubby gets me one penguin thing a year in my stocking.

This is pretty much all I am going to do for Christmas this year. I usually put out so much stuff that my sister says it looks like Christmas puked in my house. I am not even putting out my tons of nutcrackers. I have one that stays out year round, he looks like a pirate. My two foot one was out all year this past year because I forgot to put him away. I decorated him for Halloween too. I put a white pillowcase over him and made some eyes and a mouth out off felt to turn him into a ghost. LOL. It was the hubby's idea. I am thinking I should put him away this year, maybe make some room for him in our bedroom closet. We will see.

How goes the Christmas decorating in your house?