Christmas Traditions: Our Little Tree

One of the (many) things I love about the Advent season is getting to establish our own family Christmas traditions. Since we always spend Christmas with one set of parents or the other, we haven't really gone all out in terms of decorating our own little apartment... But we've slowly introduced a few annual traditions, which we add a little to every year. Last year, we finally bought ourselves a little artificial Christmas tree -- it's the perfect size for our apartment. And by "perfect size," I mean "fits on top of our subwoofer."

Isn't it cute?

This year, we decided to add a new tree-trimming tradition: stringing popcorn and cranberry garlands!

We approached this project as we approach all other projects -- by starting out with lots of internet research. I read Martha Stewart's directions, and several "fun crafts to do with little kids" websites, and figured I would split the difference. It was actually really easy, and lots of fun -- I think this new tradition is a keeper! And the garlands look really cute on our tree.

I totally overestimated the number of cranberries needed for our little Charlie Brown tree... David raised an eyebrow when I came back to the cart with three boxes of fresh cranberries, and looked quizzically at me when I tried to explain that Martha used nine boxes to decorate her 9' living room tree, so 3 boxes should be right for us... Next time, I'm totally listening to him. He's better at the numbers and stuff.

So after finishing the garlands for the tree, and looking at the two and a half leftover boxes of cranberries... I decided to keep going, and put garlands up elsewhere. :)

Garlands are now gracing our living room bookcases. I particularly like the way they look next to our Early Church Fathers set. :)

And we still have two full boxes of cranberries left. And loads of popcorn. So either I'm going to garland the entire apartment, or we'll be eating lots of homemade cranberry sauce this month...

More posts on our Christmas traditions to come soon!