Christmas To Do List- Put Up the Tree

I love all the rituals and traditions that go with Christmas.  As soon as we started getting a little snow, I was itching to put up the Christmas tree, but made myself wait until at least Thanksgiving was done.  So, shortly after Thanksgiving my husband lugged our sad, little, fake tree out of the basement, and then we left it sitting in our dining room, hoping our youngest cat would not try to climb it or bite the light strands.  He did fairly well so this Tuesday I decided to decorate it.  But before I decorated, I decided to get a tree skirt made!  Last year I just draped some fabric around the base.

Our raggedy, artificial tree.  Don't mind the bare spots. :)

This year I had come across some blue snowflake print in my stash that I had gotten second hand when I first decided I wanted to sew.  It's a heavier cotton, but not too heavy.  I also had some tan broadcloth to use for a backing and I went to the fabric store here in town for some pompom trim, just to make it a little more festive.  I was kind of dreading cutting the circles out, but found an easy tutorial at Random moosages as I see fit.  It just took some simple geometry and we were in business.  The most troublesome part was sewing on all that pompom trim!  I had bought enough.  (Another small win for my feeble math skills.)  And, I sewed it to my front piece before sewing the front and back together, but I didn't think about all that bulk the trim would add.  It turned out okay, but it's not top notch sewing.

Here's a better look at the print and the trim.

I use ornaments just because I like to collect them from different places as souvenirs and I'm not really one to go for much of a theme.  I like eclectic better.  I love unwrapping the ornaments and remembering where we bought them and what we were doing.  It's like going through a box of postcards.

This one came from Bayfield, WI and is handmade.

Present from my husband last year.

I got this one right here in town, but he's so cute.  The shop he's from is out of business now.

And so my tree is decorated, my tree skirt is made.  For the most part, the cats have been leaving the ornaments alone.  Although last night I caught HB sleeping under it.  Then he got up and decided to pose for pictures. 

He's so cute, he can get away with anything!