It's that time of year

when the world falls in love
every song you hear
seems to say
Merry Christmas
May your new years dreams come true!
And this song of mine
In 3 quarter time
wishes you and yours
the same thing too
-- The Carpenters

When I was growing up, there was a lady in our ward who threw annual Christmas parties, with tons of food, and even Santa Claus showing up! Her house was always gorgeously decorated. It was one of my dreams when I grew up to do the same thing. For the past 5 years I have held a Christmas party which is a great excuse to decorate and eat good food.
When I first started this tradition, I loved getting a fresh tree. They smell so wonderful! A couple of years ago I bought a fake tree because it was a challenge to get a real tree up the stairs. Imagine the scene from While You Were Sleeping: I should have gone with the blue spruce they are lighter! The fake tree comes in pieces which are easy to move up and down the stairs. But it doesn't smell the same. To solve this problem, I got a can of "tree" scent, and attempted to spray it on my tree. It was overpowering! I almost passed out! I had to open my sliding doors in December and turn on the fan to kill the smell! Ok, so it is North Carolina and it was 70 degrees that day, so it wasn't a big deal to open the doors...... but still :) So much for a tree scent......
My mom always let us children decorate the tree with our very own ornaments. Every year we would get a new one, and so our collection grew. When I moved out, I got to take all my ornaments with me. But by that time, my mom had her own collection of really nice ornaments. I am talking about the pretty gold ones from the White House. Also, other nice commemorative ornaments from vacation destinations. So my mom started doing a "theme" tree, which was covered with her beautiful ornaments, and flowers, and coordinating ball ornaments. So in true fashion, I copy my mom now. I have a theme tree that has my pretty ornaments, with white snow flakes my grandmother crocheted for me, and red balls and roses. It is gorgeous.
My grandparents always had a train going around the bottom of their tree. I don't think we ever went to their house when we were kids, but I did go one time as an adult, and the train was a very cool feature of the tree. So this year is the first year I have a train under my tree. It has some flat cars with presents on top, and I built a tunnel out of the other presents for the train to go through.
As I came home last night, I realized that I am missing something. A huge Grinch inflatable decoration to sit on my front lawn! My neighbors have one, and it is quite the sight. I am going to use it in my directions, "Just pull in where you see the big Grinch" :) Maybe this year I will go out to the after Christmas sales and get some outdoor decorations......