O Christmas Tree

Although this will be Matt and I's second Christmas as a married couple, this will be the first year we've decorated our apartment. Last year we had that amazing month-off student schedule so we actually put up our tree at my parent's house (lame, I know haha). This year I was able to decorate our apartment with all the fun things that we have collected since our wedding. The first order of business was the Christmas tree. We put up the actual tree a couple days ago and when Matt got home from work last night we had a chance to decorate it. I know that a lot of people have really pretty, fancy trees that could be in magazines, but that is not our style. Don't get me wrong I LOVE decorating the house and getting the latest things from Pottery Barn, but my Christmas tree doesn't fit into that category. My mom has such as eye for decorating and everything in our house always looked so perfect, but our tree was always just full of ornaments that meant a lot more than how pretty they were. Every year as we pulled out the ornaments my grandmother made, or my aunt made us, or we had collected or made growing up we laughed and told stories of how much they meant to us. Throughout December we would look at the tree and our minds would be full with memories. So, I know our tree won't ever be in a magazine or no one will ever say, "your tree is gorgeous!" but we don't care. We love it and it will forever be tacky, but full of memories :)

Although you can't see it very well, my parents gave us the star they bought the first year of their marriage and used for the next twenty years. It was nothing special, but it meant a lot to my parents and we are lucky to place it on our tree this year.

Tiger loves sleeping under the tree already :)

As I mentioned before, it is always fun to travel down memory lane as we got our the ornaments. Well this happened to Matt and I definitely this year. As I pulled out this ornament (which is actually kind of ugly and we put it back in the box haha) Matt and I remembered a funny memory. We were both at this cotillion dance together way back in 7th grade. Who knows if we had to dance together, but this was pretty funny! Matt was actually a cotillion drop out (along with Cameron, who left me all alone!) after the first year. But at least he went to this dance, and we were there together :)

Matt's grandparents gave us this nativity scene for Christmas last year and we are very thankful for it! We look forward to adding pieces to it in the future. My aunt cross-stitched that which is next to the nativity scene. It says "First Christmas Together 2008 Cogdill."
This is a picture of my table. You can't see it very well, but I think it turned out great. I want to get green napkins and placemats, but gold will work for now.
Our stockings! We don't have a mantle so we had to get creative. We bought Tiger a stocking, its pretty cute! It says "woof" on the little green button, haha. Hopefully next year I will be able to use my stocking hooks on a real MANTLE! :)
I LOVE my Christmas dishes, they are one of my favorite things I registered for at my wedding. My parents finished out my set of 12 for me last year so now I can have lots of company over for Christmas dinner one day :)

I just love Christmas and how the glow of a Christmas tree can change your attitude and perception of the day! Only 23 more days to go!