From Our House to Yours

I just realized that title sounds like a Christmas card greeting.  But no, I'm not here to reveal our 2018 Pearl family Christmas card.  I'm not even sure I'm going to get one of those out this year. (Although as my husband likes to remind me, I've been saying that every year for about 10 years now, and it always seems to get done eventually.  I can't seem to give it up!)

What's actually going on here is that I was just admiring the view from our front hall this morning and I snapped a picture on my iPhone...and then I thought I'd share it on the old blog.

Don't judge me for saying this, all you hip, young HGTV enthusiasts...but I don't really love the whole open-concept thing.  At best, I have a love/hate relationship with it. We did not have it going on at all in our old house in NH, where we lived for 26 years.  That house had a traditional Colonial footprint that included lots of walls.

As you will see, there aren't that many of them in our new house.  Standing near the front door, at the edge of the dining room, I can see into both the living room and the family room...and I can also see both Christmas trees.  We have a 7-foot "Griswold overlit tree" in our living room, with over 3,000 LED lights (thus the atomic blue glow coming from that area), which we got last year for our first Christmas in VA; and now we also have a 7-foot "slim" tree in the corner of our family room, which I bought this fall.  When we downsized from the rather epic 9-and-a-1/2-foot tree we had in NH, we had too many ornaments for one average-sized tree, and last year a whole storage bin filled with them never made it out of the basement.  The Rx for that situation was having two trees for our second Christmas in the new house.

I do like rooms with walls, and I miss having more of them in this new house.  (Less privacy, less places to hang stuff!)  But I also like being able to see both trees at once.  So I'm going to consider this a plus for the VA house, which--as much as I fight against change of any kind--is slowly but surely growing on me. 

What about you: do you--like JoJo Gaines--have the desire to knock down most of the walls in your house; or do you prefer having separate rooms?  Do you have only one Christmas tree, or do you have two (or more)?  Do you decorate mini trees for your kids' bedrooms (like I did for my boys, once upon a time)?

That's a lot of questions, I know!  But if the spirit moves you, leave me a message--I'd love to hear from you.  :)

One more thing: don't forget that the giveaway contest ends at midnight tonight.  You could win a copy of either Finding Grace or Erin's Ring!  It's easy to enter--just leave me a comment and you could be a winner.

My grandson G-Man is excited--I hope you are, too!

(P.S. Is there anything cuter than a pre-school Christmas show?  Rhetorical question, obviously.)