Oh Christmas Tree

The last couple of years we've decorated our Christmas tree with paper gift tags from Target (A la here). Last year, in an act that is totally out of character and organization, I actually bought gift tags when they were 1/2 off the week after Christmas (I, of course, did not remember this until after I had made a whole season's worth of ornaments but when I went to open the light for there tree, there they were),

So, as I mentioned, this year we made our ornaments.

We made applesauce/cinnamon ornaments (equal parts applesauce and cinnamon--bake at 200 for 2 hours) and they smell amazing.  I hung some in the window and when the sun warms them the whole house smells like a cinnamon roll.

Luckily while making applesauce ornaments if your mom is doing the mixing you can snack on the ingredients

You don't have a whole set of butterfly ornaments?

We made acorn ornaments and felt circles as well.

Do you see that dazzling sparkeled acorn just to the left of center?  They turned out to be totally darling.

Sadly, I realized a little too late that our tree was a little to round a bushy (for some reason that's the only kind of tree they have here) for such tiny, simple ornaments.  As one of the teenagers who helped us decorate the tree said, "This tree reminds me of like living in olden times--when you had to make all of your own stuff in the wilderness. I am totally into that"

That's almost a compliment right?

I added the scraps of last year's paper ornaments and things are looking up.

In a very lucky twist of fate as our Christmas tree was getting trimmed and tied up they actually cut off a whole other tiny little tree (kind of like our tree's twin).  The tiny tree is exactly what our tree should look like (in an adorably sincere kind of way) and the kids could not be more thrilled that they get to have a little, tiny, sincere tree in their own room.