I got home from a very nice (and long) Thanksgiving vacation yesterday. I was home for more than a week and it was great to spend some time relaxing. I got to catch up with friends from high school (some that I haven't seen since we graduated) and meet my new baby cousin!


Some of the high school crew all grown up!

I managed to fit in one run when I was gone. My mom and I headed to a trail near my parents house on Black Friday to do something short. It was about 30 degrees, windy and just all around miserable.



The run itself kind of sucked. Clearly my lungs and legs aren't quite ready for freezing cold winter running, but I guess it was better than sitting on the couch all week.

When I got back yesterday afternoon, I started setting up my first every grown-up Christmas tree.

I knew as soon as I moved into my own apartment that I wanted to get a real tree that I could decorate (and by real I mean not a table top tree...I actually bought a fake tree because it's a lot easier to carry a box up my elevator than a full-blown pine tree). For years living with roommates, I never had a tree, because no one wanted to really deal with it so I was beyond excited to have my own tree this year.

I put on the Christmas music station on Pandora and got to work.



Turns out, setting up an artificial tree is time consuming.

Once I got all the branches put into their proper spots on the base, it felt like it took me forever to fluff them and actually make it sort of look like a tree.



The worst part though was stringing the lights. Turns out, I am just not good at it. I took the lights on and off three or four times before I finally got them to look sort of decent.

But then came the fun part -- hanging up all the ornaments.

I had a few red and gold colored ornaments from table top trees I've had in the past, but my mom also gave me a bunch of ornaments to use when I was home for Thanksgiving.



At the end of the day, my tree looks pretty nice, and not at all Charlie-Brown-esque, which I was a little bit worried about.

If you celebrate, when did you get your first Christmas tree?