Sing it with me now: “It’s the most wonderful tiiiiime of the yeeeeear.”

Christmas season is upon us, which means it’s time for my yearly reminder to myself that I’m not a big fan of my cheap fake tree and its one strand of lights — both situations that I’ve meant to change and never do.

My main issue with the fake tree is that each time I have to assemble it and manually spread out each and every one of the little “branches.”  The final product is okay…in the dark:

I like to take the spirit of “it’s the thought that counts” and focus on the overall experience.  I do love that we have the tree plugged into an outlet that’s attached to a light switch so that we can turn it on with ease.  The pine-scented candle nearby somewhat makes up for the lack of natural Christmas tree aroma.

And then there are the ornaments, which I feel have a nice personal flavor.  Plenty of people have stars or angels on top of their trees, but who else has a mitten?

I received this mitten as a gift from a coworker when I was in Florida.  There was a Starbucks gift card inside, which was both a really unexpected and appreciated gesture and also the impetus for my first ever Starbucks trip.

The newest piece was inspired by this blog post about brightly colored shoes.  My sister-in-law read it and grabbed this guy for me:

There’s also the ridiculous.  And by that I mean ridiculously awesome.  It doesn’t glow in the dark anymore, but I appreciate the joy from an ornament that came out of a Golden Crisp box:

 On the other end of the spectrum is the sentimental.  I have a handful of ornaments from my grandmother’s tree, including this classy piece:

The rest of the living has some Christmas cheer as well.  On the mantle, in addition to a stocking, there’s a dog with appropriate headwear:

No Christmas would be complete of course without this, which needs absolutely no explanation unless you’re a terrible person:

Christmas is the final holiday of the year, and I like to make sure that we keep an eye toward what is next.  That, of course, is the new year, and what better way to celebrate that than with a piece of Taco Bell memorabilia?

When you squeeze him, he says, “Happy New Year, amigos!”

We’ll get there soon enough.  For now, Merry soon-to-be-Christmas, amigos!