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I started looking forward to the holidays in this house as soon as we knew we’d be staying for a bit. We’ve always had a tradition of cutting a fresh tree, but this year it felt even more authentic, doing it in the mountains. While sometimes I wish we could just wander into the woods with an axe like back in the day, we found a charming local farm and quite possible the prettiest tree we’ve ever had. I even broke out the “nice” ornaments from storage, and it was comforting to see some old friends. Many of them are vintage (my grandparents) and I’ve slowly added to the collection each year. The kids got to have their own colorful tree in another room (which you can see in my holiday highlights), but in true 2020 form, a few strands wouldn’t light this year and we ended up with a striped tree…I’ll spare you those images, lol. We have so much to be thankful for, and the gratitude hits hardest during the holidays. We will never forget this year…for so many reasons.

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My new favorite ornament is from my friends at Paloma’s Nest (as are the stockings). The wooden house was a gift from my husband and will be a way for us to always remember this special year. The weather on Christmas morning was rainy and cozy, but made for terrible photos…these are from a day or two before, when we had beautiful sunshine (along with snow). It did actually snow on Christmas day, in the evening…so it was technically a white Christmas! Not to mention, we had a huge snowstorm the week prior, so we were thrilled. I kept the countdown simple this year with candy for each day, saving the best and biggest for last. We’ve gone from a book advent calendar to candy and I have to laugh…I most certainly didn’t have the energy (or budget) to do that in 2020. Thankfully our children are old enough to understand how extremely lucky they are to even have gifts this year, and we donated and gave back as much as we could. I hope your holidays were filled with joy and light, despite the challenges of this year…here’s to a brighter 2021!