The holiday season is upon us. You can expect a few upcoming posts on crafts for the holidays, recipes that are always on my Christmas table, ideas to make your gift giving easier, and traditions I like to carry on.

Monday I put together my tree. I love having an artificial tree. Having been a forestry major in college, I find saying that difficult. Growing up, we always cut a tree. Even those first few years, actually close to the first 15 years of married life, we cut a tree down. The kids loved traipsing through a tree lot. I did, too. The joy of having an artificial tree is not having to worry. I put the tree up the beginning of December. I leave it up with just its lights for a week or ten days. Then, I put the first layer on – the garland or beads. I let that stand until we can all get together and we decorate the tree. It could take two weeks to close to 20 days before the decorating is over.

Do you decorate in stages? Is your tree real or artificial (I don’t like the word fake as it is a tree.)?