It's beginning to look a lot like...

yep, Christmas.

I know, I know, Thanksgiving is not even upon us-SLOW DOWN!

I usually don't even want to HEAR Christmas music until I am shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving. For some odd reason this year, things are different for me.

While I am excited about Thanksgiving, I have Christmas a lot on my mind this year. It probably has to do with the fact that Matthew's family is coming to our house for the holiday to celebrate with us.

So, while I am looking forward to our trek to Texas to spend the holiday of thankfulness with my family, I thought I might do a little post on how Christmas usually looks in our home.

(And since this is our first Christmas in our new house, I might not have the most definite answers for some of the questions that I make up.)

White lights or colored? White for the tree and colored for the outside of the house. And I really hope we have lights on the outside of our house this year! Matthew is busy doing things like painting the trim on the outside right now.

Real tree or artificial? Really, is that even a question? ARTIFICIAL!!! I can't be responsible for remembering to water the tree and hoping that it doesn't burn our house down.

Egg nog or Hot chocolate? One way for this house...hot chocolate. Matthew, however, would rather have boiled custard (ugh!).

When do decorations go up? Usually the day after Thanksgiving (or whenever we get home from visiting family) but this year-gasp!-we are going to put up our tree tomorrow night. When we return from Texas, we are ridiculously busy on Monday and Tuesday nights and have singing practice on Wednesday night, so it would be ONE WEEK after Thanksgiving before it got put up...unacceptable.

Theme for your tree? Yes, the theme is old and meaningful ornaments. I don't do a whole bunch of theme trees, mostly because I would get lazy around tree 1 1/2 and give up. I would also be a little stressed about maintaining the themes. We use the exact same ornaments every single year.

Does Santa wrap presents or just leave them under the tree? Santa does not have time to MAKE all of the presents in his workshop (with the help of his little elves) and have time to WRAP the presents! Of course, Santa just lays them under the tree, unwrapped. Have you ever seen a single Christmas movie (other than Christmas Story) where Santa wraps the gifts. No.

Mistletoe? No, but I need to rethink that this year...I think a few more kisses are in order.

Favorite Christmas movie? Elf. Love it. And I am pretty sure that I will cry at most movies this year, ya know, due to hormones.

Do you open presents on Christmas Eve? Yes, but very specific gifts...the girls open presents from each other and we open presents from the girls and we all open pajamas. Don't try to sneak any other ones in there or you don't get to make cookies with us later on.

And that is all I have energy for tonight (fyi, I came home and took a nap on the couch this afternoon while the girls watch Sesame Street-because it lasts ONE HOUR-and it is 9pm and I am ready for bed...pregnant much?).

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Early Christmas!