Christmas Spirit

It is that time of year. Christmas time. I was looking around our house and realizing, we don't have any Christmas decorations except for the two stuffed animals that I bought a few weeks ago at the Goodwill outlet store. If you don't know what the Goodwill outlet store is, then let me inform you. It is the coolest thing on the planet. Really. They have bins of clothes and stuff that is sold by the pound. Yep, that is right, by the pound. $1.50 per pound to be exact. You can get a lot of clothes under a pound. And stuffed animals too. So, I thought, what the heck, why not spend 75 cents and get a little Christmas spirit. But now that the Christmas season is truly upon us, my two Goodwill stuffed animals seem a little sparse. I thought that maybe we had some other decorations and so I journeyed up into the attic to take a looksee at what we have. Only Christmas tree ornaments and accouterments. You see, we decided not to get a Christmas tree this year. We decided that Ella would be too young to care and we are busily trying to pay off medical bills from the rather long, arduous birth (that story will be coming later) and just can't quite justify shelling out 40 bucks for a decoration. Well, I was sitting around the house feeling a little sad about the lack of Christmas cheer in our humble abode. Christmas music can only take you so far. And I had a genius idea. I would go over to my parents house with Ella and we would help trim their tree. Genius. We are going to be there Christmas day anyway. So yesterday, I bundled up my little bundle of joy and we set off to Clyde, NC. And voile!, Christmas spirit!

My mom, dad, little brothers, Ella and I all helped to trim the tree although Ella preferred eating the branches.

So, it feels a little more like Christmas, but our house is still looking awfully Christmasy sparse. I don't know, should we get a tree? Will Ella look back one day and say, "hey, why didn't we have a tree for my first Christmas?" What do you think?

And I have to just post this picture. Uncle Joel playing with Ella while she is in my lap. Funny.