Finally in the spirit

We're going to visit Kevin's family in Pennsylvania for Christmas this year, so in spite of my regret every time I see beautiful trees like this, we aren't going to put one up this year. :-( It didn't make sense to have one up only to take it down two weeks later, or to leave it up unwatered while we were gone. Instead, we decided to get a pretty wreath of some sort. I found a lovely (and cheap!) one with all different kinds of evergreen at Lowe's, and brought it home for our wall:




Then, while I was there, I asked for the sawed-off bottom of someone's tree, which they gave me for free! After some heavy sawing on the front porch (though nothing like last year's tree destruction), I went from this:



to this:



and this:



over the mantle and halfway up the stairs. And with enough left over for an advent wreath. :-) It was great to get to go through all of the ornaments to find the few I wanted to take out, and so now even if we don't have a tree I feel very in the spirit.