Our Christmas Tree 2014

It has finally happened and none too soon. With just a few days to spare we got our Christmas tree up and decorated. We had to wait until the kiddos came home from university which meant that we got our tree for half price (good thing too because it originally cost $40). We had our annual evening of munching on nibblies while decorating the tree. - some of us doing more munching than decorating and some of us doing both. 

Kate and I decided to go for a woodland-themed tree this year which some people in the family had a hard time understanding. They were convinced that trains went through the woodland and airplanes went over the woodland so train and airplane ornaments could go on the tree. And that somewhere in the world elephants lived in a woods so they could go on the tree etc. We had to do some editing when the rebels weren't in the room. 

We made owls out of toilet paper rolls. They were so simple to make and definitely added to the woodland theme.

My friend and her daughter, who happens to be my daughter's friend, came over to make cookie Christmas trees. We used the speculaas recipe (which you can find here) and it worked perfectly because the cookies are nice and hard. One batch of the recipe made exactly enough for one set of cookie cutters.  We iced the cookies using about 2 cups of icing sugar mixed with 3 tablespoons of icing sugar. The icing hardened well and piped fairly easily. It was a fun activity and will make a nice decoration for a few days and then dessert on Christmas Eve.

 

I have one more post lined up for tomorrow morning and then it is the big day.  Are you ready?  No matter how much I try to be organized there always seems to be that last-minute scramble and multiple trips to the grocery store and exhaustion. It is better this year, but you can still see that I'm posting about our tree two days before Christmas.