Yes, every year when the tree begins to go up, I use the same song for the title every year. Let’s just call it tradition.

There was a debate about the tree this year, pretty much between me and my little brain. I wanted a tree larger than the little tabletop tree, but I didn’t want to mess with the nine foot artificial one in the attic. So … Bob and I went out Saturday and found a five and a half/six foot tree. Live tree. Yes, I am being brave this year and taking a chance with a live tree, glass ornaments and three cats in the house.

We did keep it fairly simple, Bob got his Star Wars ornament (at least I think it is Star Wars)

and I got Cinderella on the tree.

I think Cinderella is the better ornament as she does have the best shoes. Bob doesn’t think that is all that important in deciding the cool ornament criteria. I still contend shoes are highly important.

This is the first year we really put a tree up since the first year we were here. We pulled all the ornaments down and started putting them up. Some were from my collection – mostly cats and cute things – a few were Bob’s, and most came from Mom and Dad’s old collection. I had forgotten how many of those were glass, which is very pretty, but maybe a little formal. But interspersed with the others, they look lovely. We also found …

This ornament is older than me, and possibly older than Dad. This came from the box with great grandmom’s ornaments in it. I was reluctant to put any of them up as it is a live tree with cats in the house, but we decided to go for it. We didn’t put a lot of them up, but we did add one or two just because, hey, we have them, why not. (crèche set should be going up this week!)

On the food front, we had Mom and Dad and Aunt Dolly and Amilcar over for lunch and I got to use all the wonderful things from my basket. They included …

A yellow tomato and goat cheese salad with basil and white balsamic vinaigrette. Mom thought this was peppers and mozzarella, and was pleasantly surprised by they flavor. I also experimented with rainbow chard and came up with

This was a total experiment. I toasted pine nuts in sesame oil then tossed the chard with garlic and salt and wilted them down. I added Parmesan cheese and tossed it all together with basil. Dad thought it was good, Mom and Aunt Dolly had seconds and Bob declared it “a definite do again.”. Experiment a success!

One a side pet note, Gracie hated her pretty pink, sparkly bell collar so much she took it off. No clue where it is, she came home one evening with it totally gone. How she managed to get out of a buckled collar, I do not know, but really wish I did.