woops

we did it.

we put up our christmas tree already. sorry if you're annoyed.

last year in europe we had no holidays but christmas around this time of year. no halloween and thanksgiving to take up time. no beating around the bush-just straight to the good stuff. we also had no family to spend this time with and we had really long work weeks. so we made a memory we'll never forget. 

by candlelight--since that is how our belgian friends taught us to have light at night, devin and i spent tons of hours cutting white paper into chains and snowflakes. we knew we were coming home for christmas so we didn't get a tree, but we made paper ones. my favorite part about this process was that the mindlessness involved in cutting paper freed our brains to chat about the good stuff. 

now, mind you, it was no anthro display. and is nothing like this

or this.

but we had fun. and it submerged us in the spirit of the season.

i feel like a different person after having experienced such anticipation around the best holiday, christmas. so this year rolled around and i still listened to christmas music while handing out the halloween candy. but instead of feeling like i was jumping the gun, i felt like i just wanted more happiness around me. so i busted out the tree. why wait?