It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Undoubtedly, the Holiday's are my favorite time of the year. I've always had the luxury with my job to have some down time during this time of the year, and spending time with family and friends is what I most look forward to. This year is even more exciting with our first Christmas with Charlie!

We got our tree the day after Thanksgiving at Mountain Creek Christmas Tree Farm just outside of North Bend, right at the base of majestic Mount Si. It has long been a tradition in Kim's family to cut down the tree the day after Thanksgiving, and this was my fifth trip to the tree farm. And I feel like we got our best tree yet, measuring in just under 8 feet.

This year's Christmas Tree with our first fire of the season.

After getting the tree into the house, the real fun starts for me. I am sure that when Kim and I were decorating our first tree, she had to be thinking that she has never met anyone with more ornaments than me. I think I have every Santa/Baseball ornament ever made, and I am not joking. I guess it just became a tradition for my Mom and Grandma to get me a baseball-themed ornament each Christmas (sometimes more than one) and they started to add up. What is even more crazy, is that we also had a duplicate ornament. We both had the same exact "Baby's First Christmas - 1978" ornament. Now what are the odds of that?

Needless to say, Kim and I combined for a fun collection of ornaments, and have added even more since we met. On most of our trips we try to pick up one ornament to remember the trip, whether it be Whistler, Whitefish, Arizona, Boston or Hawaii, every time we put our tree up it brings us down memory lane when we got the ornament.

Charlie loves reaching into the tree...and he loves the Cookie Monster!

And we had one special ornament to add to the tree for Charlie this year!

Charlie's first Christmas ornament!