20. have and decorate my first Christmas tree

On Saturday morning I woke up and decided that YES. I needed a Christmas tree for my apartment, despite the fact that I'm planning to spend the actual holiday at my parents' house where there will no doubt be a much bigger and better dressed tree.

So we headed over to the Delancey Street Christmas tree lot in the hopes of finding a potted, live tree. The web site had said they would have those but it turned out they did not. I very much like the Delancey Street Foundation and I would prefer my money go to them than, say, Home Depot, so I decided to see if there was anything at their lot that caught my fancy.
I was almost set on getting one of the little wee ones but they were $30ish (with the stand) but then I realized that for about 15 bucks more I could have a bigger one so....

My tree!

I only bought one strand of lights because I was planning to buy a SMALL tree.

I know what you're thinking-- where the hell are all the ornaments? Well I only had, like, five. If it is surprising to you that I was able to lay my hands on those five THEN YOU HAVE NOT MET MY FRIEND REGINA LEEDS. Because of her magic book (<-- affiliate link) all of my stuff is now appropriately binned and labeled. Including my five ornaments. You'll also notice that I veered away from tradition and topped the tree with a bracelet. But I think of ornaments as items that people just sort of accumulate naturally. You get some as gifties, the little ones make them, etc. So I was perfectly happy with leaving the tree as-is (as-was?). And then I went to the Alameda Point Antiques Faire (don't forget the pretentious e at the end) on Sunday and ended up buying a pretty glass canister full of ornaments.

I forgot to photograph the tree once the blue ornaments were on it and now the lighting is weird so you'll just have to use your imagination. Hint: the tree looks great.
Somehow I also ended up with a tiny sprig of Misteltoe hanging in my kitchen. Merry Christmas, indeed.