In the 2.5 years that we've been married, I've learned that marriage is a dance of compromises and solutions. One area that Jordan allowed no room for compromise was in the way of Christmas trees: it had to be real.

Growing up, we would put up our artificial tree on black Friday and by Saturday every corner in our house had been touched by Christmas. The tree was beautiful with white lights, pearl string beads, red and gold ornaments, and a silver bell for all every Christmas my sister and I had been around for! One year my dad, sister, and I got to cut down a real tree to put in another room of the house. This tree had long needles and was more wide than it was tall. Mom had whipped up some fake snow and we got to decorate the tree with globs of this "snow," multi-colored lights and whatever wacky ornament our heart desired!

So when Jordan put his foot down on the "real tree argument," guess which tree I had in mind? Well, we're on our third real tree and I have to say I'm hooked! Our tree decorations are from Target and Michael's -- my two favorite retail stores on earth -- and the tree topper was an Ebay find!

Thanks for stopping by and I pray your Christmas is filled with wonder and quality time with family.