christmastime in DC

I went home to Virginia for a very brief trip the weekend before Thanksgiving with the intentions of squeezing my niece & nephew, loving on my parents' dogs, saying Happy Almost Thanksgiving! to my parents & (the most important of all) (I'm kidding) (but it was important) picking up our Christmas decor that lives in my parents' attic for 11 months out of the year. 

It won't surprise you to know that I nearly walked out the door to head back to Washington without said Christmas items, even though I remembered that I needed to grab them no less than 15 times over the 48 hours I was in town. So, up to the attic I darted, climbed into the very back of the lowest crawl space sort of area that I've staked out as Bethune Christmastown & grabbed: one box of white baubles, a tree skirt, our stockings, a box of string lights & my nutcracker. I somehow managed to also choose the bag that had the ornament hooks in it, so 46 serendipitous points to meee. In retrospect, it was a pretty comprehensive grab job, beings that I was so rushed. I did forget a tree topper, so we cut a star out from Anthropologie gift wrap paper & taped it on. A little odd, but also entirely endearing. Add in a recently gifted polar bear ornament from one of my dearest friends, & our two souvenir ornaments from Europe, & it's perfectly personalized for 2014.

At the last minute, we decided to ditch our half-hearted idea to get a mid-sized artificial tree & stay true to our love of real Christmas trees. On the way into the grocery store around the corner from us, we realized that they, in all of their wisdom, were selling tabletop trees that came equipped with a miniature tree stand. My, do they know their demographic.

So, on a strangely warm December 1st, in a break between torrential rain, we walked to the grocery store to get ourselves a Christmas tree. The cashier was appropriately excited for us as we asked her to ring up a mini tree while we laid our apples, tortillas & eggs on the counter. We had about six trees to pick from, but it was still Christmassy & romantic. Our little tree's 3 ft. stature was the trade-off for the authentic fir tree smell. It took us all of 15 minutes to decorate. But its tiny presence is just right in our tiny apartment - A perfect addition to this chapter in our lives. 

It took me all of 5 minutes to "decorate" the rest of the apartment with our two stockings & a nutcracker, so this will act as the bits & pieces of our Christmas post for this year. Just trying to keep it fresh ;) You can see our past Christmas posts here: 

2013

2012 + bonus Christmas Tree video

2011

Now excuse me, but I actually need to go water Little Baby Tree.