It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

I love the holidays. I love how families are brought together. I love how the lights on the Christmas tree make the house feel cozy. And I love having a husband who lets me decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving! :) 

Sadly, we don't have a fireplace with a mantle in our apartment so I improvised with our little bookcase. I decorated it with a couple lanterns we saved from the wedding, garland, lights, and a burlap garland I made (burlap is also from the wedding). 

Since I only had three days off work, we had a quick but great visit to Medford for Thanksgiving. We made the most of it and it was lovely to be back in Oregon. Lots of relaxing, catching up with friends, seeing family, eating lots of food, and shopping was done. It was great! 

We bought a Christmas tree to bring back to SF. Sheppie helped us tie up the tree. 

Then we put the tree in the car and covered it with a sheet in order to get it past the border inspection. Shh. Don't tell :) They only asked if we had fruit, which we didn't, so we didn't lie. We also brought back a dresser that my grandparents gave us. Yay!

The first thing Andrew and I did when we got home was set up the tree. Then it took a couple days to decorate because I wasn't done making the ornaments before we left and I've worked a lot since our return. Here is the finished product: our tree!

This heart ornament and the glass ornaments are the two I didn't make. I thought the star was really cute and the glass ornaments are the same green from our wedding so I couldn't resist. 

 Here is a close up of the tree.

I saw pictures of these ornaments on Pinterest and decided to make them for our tree. I also made the white yarn garland. I'm really happy with how the tree turned out. It's simple and pretty :)

With lots of left over burlap from the wedding, I've been putting it to good use. I'm almost done making a wreath! 

I also made eight more paper stars (like the tree topper) for decoration that are hanging throughout the apartment.

 I put the solid green star in the "Man Corner" since it goes with the Oregon theme :D

And here is one in the dining room, with Andrew studying for his final on Saturday.

If you can't tell, I've been busy crafting lately. It's nice to make the apartment feel more homey. We're enjoying ourselves here in SF but we're looking forward to being closer to family once Andrew is done with grad school. We are thinking the Portland area would be nice... :) 

Merry Christmas!