Tis the season...

Today I am finally going to break out the Christmas decorations, since the rest of the city is donned in lights - I figured it's about time I get with it. Everyone has their own little holiday traditions each year, some with family and some with friends, but mine consist of a tradition with me. Ok, one year my mom helped - but ask her about it some time and she will probably tell you it was not very much fun for her. Sorry, Mom, I know I can be a bit anal....ok a lot.

My tradition consists of decorating my house and putting up my tree all while listening to Christmas music and drinking wine. Sounds normal enough, right? Well, it's the way I decorate the tree that might seem a little rigid and maybe even psycho to some. I have a specific order in which things go on the tree, and for 10 years it has not changed.

1. Put on the Christmas CDs - Nature's Nutcracker and Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song
2. Uncork and pour the wine - Usually a chardonnay or a pinot grigio
3. Put up the fancy mantle garland I made (has silver bows on it)
4. Refill my wine glass
5. Put out any other silver decorations ( a silver santa, silver mini dried flower pots, silver runner, starting to get the picture?)
6. A little more wine....
7. Assemble the tree (I used to have a fake tree, but gave it away when I moved)
8. Top off my wine glass, heaven forbid it actually gets down to less than half full

And, no, I have not forgotten about the last and final steps of decorating the tree, I just think that it deserves its own little list.

1. Lights first - only white lights are allowed on my tree
2. Do I need more wine? Sure do!
3. Load up the silver garland and strings of beads - 2 sizes of each totaling more than 8 strands of silver
4. Check my wine glass
5. Bulbs are next, and guess what - they are all silver! I have 2 sizes of bulbs and probably somewhere along the lines of 75 of them. I am actually going to count them up this year just for kicks.
6. A little more wine....
7. Time for the bows!! Silver, of course!
8. Now the silver ribbons !!
9. Fill up the wine glass, I am almost finished!!
10. Place the Silver Santa on top of the tree, sit on the couch with my glass of wine, enjoy the music and the beautiful tree, reflecting on the past year's events - all of which seem kind of blurry at this point.

Yup, by this time I am pretty buzzed up from all the wine....it's a pretty great tradition if you ask me.

This year is a little bit of a bonus - I am going to make this a 2 day event. I am going to put up all the decorations out on one day, and the Christmas Tree comes later. I figured since I am getting a real tree, I will wait until the last minute when hopefully the trees will go on sale. I will probably end up with a Charlie Brown looking tree, but who cares. Once that thing gets doused with silver, you won't be able to recognize it anyway.

Well, it's almost noon so I best be getting myself to the store to grab the wine. I think one bottle will suffice for today's activities, but I am going to grab two - because in my house there is a rule: Do not EVER let yourself run out of wine!!