Home for Christmas

I've been both looking forward to and dreading this Christmas.  I've been looking forward to it because it's Joshua's and my first Christmas as a married couple.  It's our first Christmas in our new, own home.  I get to decorate my home, bake goodies for us, celebrate with family here.  And my parents will be coming down to visit between Christmas and New Year's.

But this will be my first Christmas not at my parents' house.  It will be my first Christmas Eve and Day not with my parents and siblings.  And honestly, I'm having a hard time with that.  I'm going to miss them a lot.

They'll be here in spirit, though.  Joshua and I assembled our tree (yes, it's fake) and decorated it tonight.  Here in Nebraska pine trees aren't as readily available as they are in Wisconsin, and thus they're quite expensive.  So we found one at Walmart that will do just fine.  However, the box claimed that the tree is six feet tall.  It isn't.  It's about five and a half feet tall.  So it's a baby tree, but I'm okay with that. :)

My mom sent a box of Christmas things when we moved after the wedding.  I knew I had about twenty ornaments that I've been given each year.  But what I didn't know was that my mom had included even more ornaments: ones that I made in Sunday school when I was little, favorite ornaments that had always been on our family tree, and most precious, an ornament of two little bears in stockings with our names written on the back.

We'll be getting a few of Joshua's childhood Christmas ornaments from his family soon.  And then we'll have our tree.  Ours.  Joshua's and mine. :)

This is home now.  My family is spread out over several states, but this is where we live, my husband and I, and so this is home.  I'll be home for Christmas.