The Smell of Christmas

Like others who grew-up on a farm in the Midwest, I grew up having a cedar tree for a Christmas tree. They are usually plentiful on the farm...or if you can't find a good one there look next to the highway or next to the railroad tracks. The family would all load up in dad's old truck (Big Red) and head out to find a tree. When we finally decided on a tree, dad would hand us the recently sharpened ax and every kid would get a swing at choppin' it down. After each having a turn Dad would then finish the job and load the tree into the back of the truck. We would then take it to the house put the tree stand on it and often find that the tree was a lot bigger than we thought, so we would cut it down to size and put it in the living room next to the window and try to position the tree so you can't see the hole or flat spot in the tree. After it's in perfect position we would pull out all the ornaments, lights, and garland and start decorating. Then to finish it off I would put the icicles on....usually to thick and too many, cause I love icicles.....then we would have our tree.

This year I decided not to do the "real" tree....Caleb and I remodeled our house and put new super plush carpet in and I'm not ready to have cedar needles stuck in it for the all the years to come. Luckily my mom hooked me up with a "Compton's Special" pre-lit tree a few years ago....for those who don't know what a "Compton's Special" it's a long story and I will explain at another time. It's not the fanciest artificial tree out there, but for $25 I'm not gonna complain!!

Most people have a color or some kind of elegant theme to their tree...mine is NASCAR...and mainly Jimmy Johnson. And thanks to my sister, Kim, I even have Jimmy Johnson stockings. I wrapped almost all the presents today so now I have some things under my. So I don't get things too confused between mine and Caleb's family I use different color wrapping papers for each family. Green for my family and Blue for Caleb's....I also used the green for Caleb's presents, just the reverse side.....His are all the one with the red bows. If you have a Sam's club card, I suggest going there for wrapping paper.....they have huge rolls and the paper is reversible. They also have really good deals on their wire ribbon.

If any of you are like me and get a lot cards and don't like throwing them out, then you might like this neat trick I learned from my sister. At the end of the Christmas season take all the cards and place them in a stack...then take some pretty ribbon and wrap it around them both ways like you would a present and tie a bow on the top.....if you have a formal tree....you can set them under it as mock presents.....or use them to decorate else where. The "present" with the gold ribbon in front of my tree is one I did with cards Caleb and I got when we got married.

Well since I didn't do a cedar tree I really wanted to bring that delicious cedar smell (the smell of Christmas to me) into my house. So I cut some branches off the trees we have out behind the house and made a centerpiece for the table.

It's nothing fancy....just some cedar branches from out back

....some candles I bought at the end of the season last year and wrapped with some wire branch rope.....

....and some bitter-sweet that I got along side the road to add a little color. Like I said nothing special....but it sure does smell nice in here now....it Smells Like Christmas!!!