I was talking to my mom this afternoon about how it doesn’t seem like Christmas is in 5 days. It’s come upon us so quickly. Like every other holiday this year, I haven’t done the decorating I usually do. I had gotten an artificial Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago because I was afraid my stick loving puppy would eat the real tree. But we hadn’t decorated it. I figured we would just have a tree with lights and call it good. My kids even said maybe we should skip it this year. Tonight, though, I looked at the bare tree and felt a bit blue. I like the decorations. I like all the sparkly and shiny ornaments. Every year my kids and I buy something new to add to the collection for the tree, and it’s fun to see all the different ones each year and remember when we got them. I have little nurse ornament I bought at mayo clinic when my dad had his cancer surgery. I have a stuffed cat that we all thought looked like our fat Sousi. There’s the little paint ladder from the days I did decorative painting. This year I got one made with Chance’s picture on it. But my favorite ones are the homemade ornaments from when my kids were little. They’re grown up but I still add their paper ornaments to the tree. So tonight I put Christmas music on Pandora and pulled out the tote of ornaments. Maybe there’s just a few days to enjoy it, but that’s enough. I’m thankful I took the time. It now feels a bit more Christmasy.