Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas Tree! (139)  To me, the tree has so much to do with it beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  It smells good.  It looks pretty.  It has meaningful ornaments on it.  Ours leans a little bit #notaprofessionaltreedecorator.

So many pieces of our tree make me dream of Christmas.  I love turning off the lamps and lights at night and using the tree lights instead.  It's so dreamy. (140)

I wanted to break a few things down for you:

First of all, our tree skirt. (141)  This is one of the most highly anticipated decorations to bust out each year (in my opinion).  My Grammy is this really talented quilter/sew-er (without the dash it says sewer, as in drainage system and that is so not her!)  

It is shiny, and fancy, and hand made just for our family.  In fact, our house displays many Grammy original (142) pieces both on and off season and I love it!

Then come the presents that go under the tree.  (143)

Confession:  I am a horrible gift wrapper.  I have even handed this task off to people many times in the past.  

Last year I was inspired to go with a gift wrapping theme and I found one that I really loved while on an all around inspiring blog (here).  Yes folks, I really have waited an entire year to put this into practice and I LOVE it!  (144)

Some packaging paper (so simple and crisp, 145), some doilies (so dainty and fancy looking 146!), a very small amount of ribbons and bows that I already had around, and voila!  The only thing I would have incorporated that I didn't was my personal favorite craft supply:  baker's twine.  Duh!  Oh well, next year!

.
Obviously, the giving of the gifts makes me happy (147), but I would be lying if I didn't say that looking at them for the past couple of weeks has also made my heart sing.

How about you?  Any particularly creative gift wrapping going on in your house this year?  Tell me about it!