Mary had a baby, yes, Lord!

If you squint, screw your face up the right way and look closely at the snow-covered house, you will see a lady beckoning at the door for the sleigh riders to hurry on to the house. Likely for cider, hot chocolate or some such delightful confection. In another dimension, that's me.

In this dimension, this is me. Leggings, hoodie, amazing knit socks from Loose Lucy's or Granny's Goodies (can't remember which), and of course a Christmas apron if there's baking to be done. And there's always baking to be done.

When I went home this weekend to Andrew, Christmas came with me, wrapped around my shoulders and tied around my heart. I finished up decorating the apartment, (also known as getting our Christmas tree), mandated (nicely) that Christmas music be the only music played, and made PW's blackberry cobbler for dessert one night. I would have taken pictures, but I've realized by now that if you're at all savvy at this whole blogging/internet thing, you've probably met The Pioneer Woman.

On Friday night Andrew and I went to the Varsity theater on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, (kind of like the Astro (may she rest in peace) for all you Tiger fans), bought Salted Caramel Hot Chocolates from Starbucks, (recommendation, YES), and took in It's a Wonderful Life on the big screen in good old fashioned black and white. I loved every minute of it.

On Saturday, we got up bright at early at the frigid crack of nine thirty and made it over to Rob and Ann's house in Raleigh. They had graciously retrieved our Christmas tree from the mountains of North Carolina for us and we were just going to pick up our adopted baby tree and bring him to his new home. As we were heading out to the car Ann shouted, "look!", and sure enough: snow. It snowed on Saturday from about two o'clock onward, enough that our neighbors made a really big, sad, dirty snowman. College kids. Can't live with 'em (germs), can't keep 'em from playing bad electric guitar at all hours. By Sunday afternoon, the snow had burned off, but the cold dug in his icy heels and had decided to extend his stay.

And now this. We had requested a "table-top" tree from Rob and Ann, and a table-top tree is what we got. Short. Little. Table-top. Perfect. Only problem is, our table top that we were going to put our table-topper on was apparently too tall for our table-top tree. So our tree ended up on the floor like a regular, read: tall, tree and is more like a Christmas bush than a tree. "Oh, Christmas bush, oh, Christmas bush, how hearty your diameter..."

I'm almost 5'3" but I was wearing probably two inch clogs in this picture. So, I'm about 5'5" in this pic. (OOooOO, go me!) However, if you forget that little (get it) detail, and look at this photograph long enough, I kind of look like a giant. Kind of.

Never have I ever felt closer to the heavens. "Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight o'er all the earth...!" Whew! I'm out of breath. You know, lack of oxygen at these high altitudes... :)