Jennifer Leigh Photography: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...well, as much as it can look like Christmas in Georgia, anyway.

This year, we decorated the the house earlier than we have ever done so. Since I had the Friday after Thanksgiving off, and I didn't go home to Ohio for the first time ever, I decided to spend my day taking down the Fall decor (didn't I just put that up?!) and readying the house for Christmas. Without putting up the tree, I spent 6 hours decorating and cleaning!

Friday night, we assembled the tree and put the lights on. Me + Christmas lights = way too much stress. I have an OCD complex that I can usually keep at bay, but something about stringing Christmas lights on the tree brings out the worst in me. Jason usually leaves that to me for a time when he's not home. This year, I requested we do the lights together...but only after I had had a few glasses of wine first. It went way faster than it did last year (last year, it took 2 days...don't ask). After stringing up the first set of lights, which covered half the tree, I went to add another strand when I realized that the prongs didn't fit into the new strand...or any other strand we had. So we completely started over with another strand of lights...after more wine, of course. A few minor bickerings and one bottle of wine later, the lights were done and looked good.

We were too tired to decorate the tree, so we did that Saturday night. Lucie, our foster pup, enjoyed licking some of the ornaments hanging low on the tree. After the initial amusement, she left it along. Not too shabby for a 3-month-old pup! We watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the original Grinch on DVD while decorating...our annual tradition. (We love Rudolph because it's sexist and not very politically correct these days. Oh, and we always sing all the songs aloud.)

The finished product turned out beautifully, and we're enjoying evenings lit only by the tree light and a strand of pre-lit garland around the kitchen window. We also have this fabulous oil burner we use from Bath and Body Works with various Christmas scents to get us into the holiday spirit.

Now all we need is some snow! Um...yeah...one can dream.