Oh Christmas Tree!

It's Christmas - and it is not beginning to even resemble Christmas around these parts. The days are hot, the nights; not any cooler. Christmas music is not on the radio. The stores have a few items for sale, but not much. The mall has some things hanging up, but nothing like in the states. In the states, the ENITRE country becomes one big Christmas village. I love that. This year, we're adjusting.

Let me rephrase that. I'M adjusting. Greg is thrilled with our little corner of Christmas. My kid's don't care. Especially Andrew "McScrooge". He hates Christmas music, "the same song over and over sung a million times", hates "putting up all that crap just to turn around and have to take it down". A note to his future wife: know that I have tried, and tried, and tried to help him see the light. He just doesn't like all that "extra crap".

Alex is a little more accepting of my annual holiday overhaul. He likes looking at everything and hearing the story behind each piece. So when I finally broke down and bought a $12 box of lights (80 whole bulbs!) he plugged them in to see how they worked, pushing all the different programable settings. We're going to hang them on the railing outside of his bedroom window on the front of the house. Our neighbors from Colombia put a few strands up last night - I was so excited! Christmas!

I got our tree up and decorations out. It took a whole 5 minutes. The tree is really just an ornament display. Which works for us because we've picked up a few ornaments during our travels here.

We went to a city called Pomaire and picked up that sweet little manger scene and large alpaca ornament. I also had to have that adorable hand-felted elf when I saw it at a Christmas Bazaar.

The size of the alpaca ornament is out of proportion for our tree - but at home we have a HUGE 12 footer. It will be perfect for that tree. However, in the meantime - it has a place of honor on this little Charlie Brown tree :)

Greg and I picked up this Buenos Ares souvenir with the intention of hanging it on our tree. It's a bell and a little corny - but the selection was limited. 

We found this handmade ceramic one at a Christmas Bazaar over the weekend. It was made to be a keychain, but we decided to take of the key ring and hang it on our tree. The design of the little people is a copy of cave drawings that have been found in this area. Cool!

I picked up the classic "Feliz Navidad" at the grocery store. You've gotta have something that says, "Feliz Navidad"!

Well, that's all folks! At least for now. 

We're continuing to gather things that we love to add to our little collection. Stay tuned...