It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Let me start this post off by saying, happy December!  Jason and I are very excited because this is our first Christmas on our own.  I decorated heavily for Autumn, but taking present buying into consideration, we only did what was absolutely necessary for Christmas decorating this year.  Besides, all the things that people have weren't accumulated in a year.  It takes time to collect that much junk -- even years!  Haha.  I got all my Christmas shopping done in two trips with my mother-in-law about a week before Thanksgiving which was easy because I only had three people to buy for.  I feel bad, but people have to understand that I can't afford to buy everyone's gifts and then pay a usually hefty shipping fee on top of it.  Everyone will (in the very least) get a Christmas card from me anyway.

Jason only got what he needed for Christmas as money is tight around this time of year.  I brought my mother-in-law and father-in-law a little something.  I do have to admit that I absolutely spoiled my in-laws cat's and ours as well.

Here is our beautiful tree that we put up about a week before Thanksgiving.  I was just a bit excited to get into the Christmas spirit considering once you do all the work that Thanksgiving consists of, it's literally all over in about an hour.  I love nothing more than to wake up, have a nice hot coffee, and sit by my nicely lit Christmas tree.  As you will notice in the picture, we started our decorations about a foot or so up from the bottom of the tree to keep the decorations away from cat eye level.  We've already caught Simba trying to climb the tree a few times.  Actually, one day I found him half way up the tree and when I yelled at him to get out, I guess I scared him because he fell out of the tree and knocked all the garland, ornaments, and lights down on that side along with him.  My mother-in-law sent me a picture on Facebook that really defines what Simba puts me through.

Simba is the same color and breed, so this was just perfect!  I really, truly believe that he will find a way to make it to the top of the tree before Christmas is over.  However, when that happens, I really believe this next picture will be the next scene I'll experience, replacing the dog with Simba.

I wrapped our portion of the railing outside of our apartment with red garland that has little candy canes hanging off of it.  I also put those sticky, gel things in both of our front windows.  They look cute.  It says 'Let it Snow' in our window, but I accidentally placed the 'S' and the 'N' backwards when I looked at it from the outside.  Oh well, I always did like to be different.  We also have a giant light up penguin guy that we place right outside our door, but we haven't really put it out a lot lately.  I really wanted to put lights up on the gutter or around the door and get a Christmas flag, but unfortunately, it's not in our budget this year.

I brought stockings for Jason, Isabelle, Simba and I.  We don't have a fireplace or anything to really hang the stockings from, but I have a little DIY project that I want to do, but again, it will have to wait until next year.

I want to get a section of a fence and paint the different sections like the one above and add some hooks for the stockings.  It's a neat idea for people who live in an apartment and want to hang their stockings.  Putting our financial tightness aside, I also picked the wrong time of the year to come up with this idea, surprisingly.  If you want to paint, the winter time is the worst time of the year to do that!  Paint takes forever to dry in the dampness and you also risk the quality of the paint job as well.

These are one of the few traditions from my side of the family that I think I will definitely keep.  My grandmother buys these around Christmas time each year and I love them.  They really help when you have a dry, scratchy throat!

This past week we watched 'Grumpy Cats Worst Christmas Ever'.  I was kind of disappointed to say the least.  I mean, I probably shouldn't have expected much to begin with considering a real cat can't really talk in real life anyway.

I love the month of December because ABC Family has the 25 day count down to Christmas list of Christmas shows that they air.  So, I'll be occupied for awhile.

What do you like most about Christmas?  What do you like least about Christmas?