It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I usually don't get too into the Christmas spirit, and if I do, it usually isn't sooner than about 36 hours before the actual day.  But last year I got excited about it and went and cut down my own Christmas tree.  This year, I've done even more.  I have even been listening to Christmas music the past week or so.  Weird.

Sunday, my roommates and I got our house all set up to look a lot like Christmas.  We braved the cold in the morning to string lights up on the house.  When I say cold, I mean it was -2 F while we were working and we had to hang lights for a few minutes and then take a break inside.  It is quite unfortunate that to be able to hold a nail with a glove on, you have to sacrifice a lot of insulation and warmth.  But it worked out and we got the lights up in time to take a drive up to the Coeur d'Alene National Forest to look for a Christmas tree.

Not too bad for my first ever attempt at hanging Christmas lights.  Unfortunately, our ladder wasn't tall enough to get the left corner of the higher roof, so it looks a little goofy.

The place we went this year was so much better than the Forest I went to last year.  It had much healthier trees and more choices.  In the end, though, we ended up with a tree that looks fairly similar to the one I got last year.  At least this year, it was a lot easier carrying it out, since I had two other people with me.

Here is our Christmas tree in its natural setting.  It was much taller than would fit in our house, so we are going to use the rest as firewood.

While we were driving back off of the mountain, we got to see an amazing sunset (pictured at the top).  Then, after a stop at Cabela's we headed home to decorate the tree.

It is a little fuller than my Christmas tree last year.  It looks pretty good, and it has a nice story behind it.