I know, Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet

It's actually pretty late for me to wait till November to put up a Christmas tree. Back when I was a kid, we always put up the tree once October starts. That's when the Christmas season starts in the Philippines. We LOVE Christmas there. Part of the reason too was because we don't have Thanksgiving. People that do procrastinate wait till after all soul's day, November 2nd, to put up their tree. This is a sort of compromise for me to put up the tree one week before Thanksgiving.

We wanted to do a real tree this year, but our male cat, Bert, is a sort of knucklehead. He can't help but attack any kind of topiary or potted plant. I had envisioned a cat stuck in the middle of the tree hanging on to dear life. We pulled out our pre-lit tree instead and set it up. It's for the cat's sake.

I try to do a different color scheme every year, but we have our traditional ornaments too. I can't decorate a tree to save my life, but I try. I kind of just slapped them all there. I bought a new star to top the tree this year. I got  a capiz shell star at Target for $20. That was my biggest splurge. I reused my crystal snowflakes my Mom and I have accumulated over the years. We go to Macy's after Christmas and buy whatever they have left at a super discounted price. The only other addition I had was the garland, that's obviously not ample enough for $6.99, and the round plastic ornaments for a pack of 50 for $15.99, both also from Target. I might go back to the store again to get another one of those garlands to add some more oomph to my tree. 

This year, I've been seasonally changing my mantle in the living room. I don't overdo it and I use very inexpensive fixes to do it. I probably only use about $20 or under to make them over. This is what it looked like for Halloween.

And now like this for the Holidays. The only addition I added to this was the "Merry Christmas" sign from that cost $3 and the bow, $1, both from Target (are you sensing a pattern here?). I reused everything else. It was just a matter of looking around the house. See, that wasn't even $20. That was a splurge of $4 for my winter mantle.

The wreath was easy to make. Just a book that's been weathered enough, any type of sturdy and plain wreath, and hot glue to put the whole thing together. I've seen several styles, I've been obsessing on designs @ The Inspired Room.

The books were antique finds of mine from an Antique mall, along with the chiropodist sign. Yeah, chiropody is the last thing you think about when someone says Christmas, but it matched, and well, the sign is funny. Everything else was what I dug out of my Christmas bin.

I bought those apothecary jars when we first bought our house. They were empty before, then I placed those pumpkins and Indian corn in them. I like seeing them filled now. I think I might have bought them at Marshall's. I just filled them with ornaments that I didn't feel like putting up or some of the plastic ornaments we just bought weren't pierced well enough for an ornament hook so I just tossed them in there. The Noel sign is a hand me down from my mom. It's the oddest thing ever, it's bristles with pearls. If you look at my tree close enough, I have snowflake ornaments made out of the same material.

So now I blog here, enjoying the warmth of the house and the glimmer of the tree. It's Christmas in my house already and I love it. It makes life easier and happier and I feel like there's nothing that can weigh me down. I probably have a couple more projects to do. See, isn't it great to decorate early? There's room for a lot of projects.