No respect for the turkey...

Many people feel that decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving is a sign of disrespect against the turkey. I don't think that the turkey takes it all that personally.

For me, it's all about holiday decorations. As it happens, I don't have much in the way of fall/Thanksgiving decor (hint hint, Mom, for the Black Friday sales) but I have a whole bunch for Christmas. Another contributing factor is that we are traveling for Thanksgiving this year but hosting a Christmas celebration chez nous. This is a roundabout justification to all the haters out there who are going to make fun of my early Christmas decor. We've had it up for a week and a half.


While I love getting out ALL of the decor (candles, pillow, my Santa carvings), the best part of Christmas decorations are the ornaments and decking the boughs. We bought our tree in the post-Christmas Target sales last year so this is our very first Christmas with a full-size tree. Finally, we have a tree big enough for all our ornaments! We have some that we collected from Lagos, some given to each other, some from last year. This year, the first ornament we put up was one we just received from my parents - the traditional "our first Christmas" hanging. While this is actually our fourth Christmas together and third that we actually SPEND together, it's nice to commererate the first married holiday.

To celebrate the ocassion, we turned up the iPod Christmas mix (heavy on the Harry Connick Jr holiday album) and made some Mint Chocolate Cocoa (purchased while at the Lady in London's favorite Hampstead tea shop). No "Polar Express" this year but we had a nice time and have been enjoying the extra-long holiday flavor this year. See below for what we did with all of the extra Ikea ornaments from last year.


Since these photos were taken, we've burned out a transformer (damn lights and european electricity!) and bought both a tree-topper and tree-skirt. There's also a couple more presents under the tree but you'll have to wait until closer to Christmas to see the updates.

Tomorrow, we're out to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends in Lisbon. Happy holidays, y'all!