Christmas at the Bennett's

The day after Thanksgiving we went and bought our Christmas tree. We really, really, really struggled with that and I can't stress it enough. Allen and I both come from families who had LARGE Christmas trees, like 15 foot ones. It was hard enough to buy a small one, because it just seemed dinky! Well besides that obstacle, Allen and I have very different taste in trees. For him, the less branches the better, and my family we like it to be a little bit heavier. We don't like the extremely bushy ones, but we like it a little fuller. After a long time, we found one that was right in the middle and that we both agreed on. As you can see it fit PERFECTLY into our home. The top is about 1/4 inch from the ceiling! :) I think the tree ended up being 8 feet. As soon as we got it in our house, it didn't seem very dinky and small anymore! We had been collecting ornaments and stuff for our tree for about the past month so that we were ready to go the day after Thanksgiving. We will need to invest in a tree topper and tree skirt next year, as you can see, we don't have one this year. So for our tree topper we just tied a nice bow out of ribbon. I think it works great! It was so much fun putting up our tree together. Now my family has a little tradition...when we put up Christmas decorations, we listen to the Chipmunks CD. It has been something I have done since I was a little girl. Well Allen hates the Chipmunks with a PASSION, so I put on my Christmas music on shuffle on my iPod so that we could get a little bit of everything. I am sad to report that we did not get to listen to the Chipmunks because every time one of their songs came on, Allen would switch to the next song. So so so sad! Hopefully as our kids grow they can stand with me and vote that we keep the Chipmunks on. We'll see how that goes.

Another difference with Allen and I is that my family puts the presents out under the tree right away. It is so pretty to look at the tree for a few weeks with presents all wrapped under there. Allen says the presents don't go out until the night before. There is another thing that I am going to HAVE to win on! So as I am buying the presents I am wrapping them and putting them under the tree. He already has finished shopping for me and refuses to wrap them and put them under the tree. So I guess only the ones I buy him are going to go under there! :( Right now I only have two, as you can see in the picture. I very badly need to go get him more gifts. I am just waiting for us to get paid next and then Allen will have many more presents. YAY FOR CHRISTMAS!