The Holidays in Full Swing

It seems to me that the holidays rather snuck up on us this year. Maybe it's the baby, maybe the busy change in work maybe even the fact that it's about 50 degrees outside today. In any case Thanksgiving was delicious and is now long gone and we patiently await Christmas which we will be spending here in Cleveland. We are looking forward to seeing both sides of the family including grandparents that we don't often get a chance to hug the week after.
We put up our tree last weekend, it's not the best tree ever but it's pretty. We have a tradition when it comes to decorating the tree. Forget the eggnog we always break out a bottle of champagne. We put the lights on the tree first of course but then we fish through the ornaments and find the cork from last years bottle of champagne and hang that on the tree first. Then come all of the glittering homemade and story laden ornaments including a bulb we had as a wedding favor at our reception, a broken Bethlehem ornament Joel's parents brought him back from the West Bank. Due to a tree stabilization mishap in aught 4 it now just says Beth em. We finish the bottle of champagne in front of the fire and the last ornament to go on the tree is this year's cork. It's a great tradition but one that may leave our tree covered in cork by the time we are grandparents ourselves. Maybe we'll start stringing them together into garland....
Happy Holidays everyone! and an open invitation: Whether you celebrate or not you are welcome to our house on December 24th for a Christmas dinner. We will be in town and hope to share some of the holiday with our friends.