Mrs. H: The Holidays

For years and years, my family has placed enormous amounts of time & effort into the holiday of Christmas and it is with no surprise, I cannot help but do likewise.

From the artificial tree that my parents continually put up each year (and is actually older than me!), the stockings with each our names sewn on with sequins hung near the banister, the massive hubba-baloo of presents thrown under the tree (which all coincidentally had the same 2-3 designs of wrapping paper), the festive feast my mom spent hours preparing that featured one of my favorite roasts: honey-glazed ham, the house filled with constant music and song from either the stereo (because I am not ashamed to say Mariah Carey's Christmas album is one of my favorites) or my sister Joanna would play all the requested Christmas tunes on the piano, the new matching red & green outfits my family coordinated just so we could wear it together on that one day of the year, and the list goes on...

But this year, it's a little different. This Christmas, will be my and Vi's first Christmas together as husband and wife and I am so excited! Since the traveling has worn us down from the wedding, the schedule is tight for both Vi and I, and we want to make this Christmas our very own...we have done our best to slowly decorate our apartment to invite the spirit and cheer of the holidays into our home...

As a famous song goes, on the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, a partridge in a pear tree. Or in this case, Vi bought and carried home a real pine tree for me! How sweet and difficult to do in Tokyo!

Then, I made these floral arrangements for our Thanksgiving dinner party:

And because I was eye-ing the poinsettia at the florist shop across our apartment all last week, he also bought me home an early Christmas present tied with a big red bow!

Instead of a partridge(s) in our tree, I decided to pick out some reindeer ornaments instead and Vi chose this guy to be his first Christmas ornament: (looks like Prancer, right?)