It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

I don't know about you, but Christmas seems to be coming WAAAYYY too fast this year.

***Side Note*** Thanks for that, late Thanksgiving. ***End of Side Note***

The tree, for example, was bought way too late. I absolutely need a decorated Christmas tree in my house to feel like Christmas is coming. Otherwise my brain thinks I'm trying to lie to it and it's actually July or something.

Part of the reason for the Christmas tree delay is that I knew 8-footers were only $27.99 at Costco. I absolutely could NOT pass down such a good price, so Joe and I waited to make the 1 1/2 hour round-trip Costco trek until he had a free night. That free night didn't come until last Wednesday, so our poor apartment was tree-free for 11 days of December!

It was almost tree-free even longer, because when we showed up at Costco they only had one left. If we were just 10 minutes later we would have been S.O.L. because that's when another couple showed up looking for a tree. I was so happy with our luck :) I would have felt worse for the other couple, but they mentioned they drove 15 minutes - we drove 45.

BTW - these are happy smiles, not gloating smiles. The other couple came a few minutes after the tree guy snapped our pic. My gloating smile would have looked much more *itchy.

We ended up going out to dinner at Ruby's, which is a 50s-style diner that I used to go to as a kid when we would stay at my family's beach house in Newport Beach, CA. I had no clue they had Ruby's restaurants anywhere else, and was surprised to see that the Philadelphia suburbs have a ton of them - I've found at least 4! It was nice, because I felt like I had a taste of home (pun intended).

Since we didn't get home until late and we decided to be lazy on Thursday night (we watched both Home Alone 1 & 2), we didn't decorate our tree until Friday night. It was a lot of fun, Joe made hot chocolate and turned on the fake fireplace from Comcast on Demand. I put on Christmas carols.

Our Wedding ornaments. Gotta be Disney-themed ;)

The ornament we got on our honeymoon (ever since getting married, we buy an ornament on every trip we take. It's really fun to re-live those memories as we decorate the tree!)

I was petrified Buster would pee on the tree since he pees on anything vertical outside. But so far, so good.

The finished product! Those are just Joe's and Buster's presents. I clearly spoil my boys.

The tree has definitely helped put me more in the Christmas spirit - but what really did it was forcing Joe to watch my favorite Christmas movie from childhood:

The made-for-TV-movie Babes in Toyland starring Drew Barrymore & Keanu Reeves. I think my mom got it for $1 at McDonalds. Those were the days.

Oh! And can't forget that it has Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid as the "Toymaster."

***Side Note*** "Toymaster" is in quotes to avoid a MAJOR SPOILER ;) ***End of Side Note***

It's truly frightening in the way that a lot of children's movies from the 80's were, but I love it so much. My brother Kevin and I would watch it near-daily every December as kids. I haven't seen it in probably 7 or 8 years because I no longer own a VCR, so this was such an awesome blast from the past. You can actually watch the whole thing on YouTube, which is what Joe and I did :)

A little piece advice for the mommies and daddies out there: Don't show this movie to your kids unless they can handle images like those below (remember, they aren't as hardened as us 80's-babies were):

After watching Babes in Toyland, I am sufficiently pumped for the holidays. I told Joe that this must requisite holiday viewing. He's not thrilled with the idea ;)

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