My mom has always been really into Christmas, and so has my dad. So, when two Christmas-happy people get married and have a kid who loves Christmas as much as her parents, Christmas is a huge event.

My mom spends December lugging the Christmas decorations from the basement and carefully placing knick-knacks and doodads here and there to make sure a little bit of Christmas touches every nook of their house.

Like the snowman napkinholders around the red napkins for dinner.

Or the collection of Byers Christmas dolls.

Santa atop the wicker sled.

One of nine Christmas trees. (Yes, nine. Only one is real.)

#2, #3 (yes, these count!)

#4—a cutie little tree she bought for $1 at least 30 years ago, working at Lord & Taylor

#5—living room tree with creepy moving doll that Bailey’s afraid of

#6, the real tree, in the family room…

…and then I got sick of taking pictures 🙂 #s 7-9 are in: my bedroom, the guest room and the spare room. When you drive past our house, you can see a tree in almost every window.

Dinner was spaghetti, obviously. Don’t mess with a good thing.

And some trying to recreate last week’s salad from Mercato

And then I snuggled with this little man in his new down coat. He’s all ready for the snow.

It was, as usual, a great Christmas. I can’t believe it’s over. Boxing Day is not nearly as exciting.