Christmas at the Riveras-in-Edinburgh

Joe and I finally started getting ready for Christmas yesterday. We got gifts sent off to our nieces (and, thanks to a free trial of Amazon Prime, they will actually get them before Christmas!), made plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, bought what we need for the Holiday meals, did a little decorating, enjoyed some Christmas music, and watched a Christmas movie together (we get to watch A White Christmas today!).

I had actually hoped to get a tree set up last week, but since I was a bit late in thinking about Christmas decorations, I was greeted by empty shelves at several stores. No trees were to be had! Fortunately, some friends of ours happened to have two trees this Christmas and were so kind to let us borrow one. We were able to locate some decorations (baubles, not bulbs), garland and such, but no lights. It's an artificial tree and was a hoot to put up. It brought back all the memories of the artificial tree my family used to have pre-1993, when we finally started getting live trees. If you've never set up a fake tree, it's an experience in matching colors and artistically arranging branches. But, the final product is quite nice. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but we are really happy with our little tree. And, it's our first Christmas tree together. So, that makes it extra special.


I found some twiggy stuff (I'm sure there's an actual name) at the grocery yesterday and so we added that to the mantle. Now, if I could just find stockings....That might have to wait until next year, since it's getting so close to Christmas!


The building across the street from us set up a tree in this court-yard type area outside. It's really simple, with just some white lights, but so beautiful, especially at night. The tree is our view out all our front room windows (our bedroom, the dining room, and living room). It's been a nice festive touch to our little neighborhood.

With Christmas suddenly upon us in a few days, we are starting to look forward to our first Christmas in Edinburgh. It even snowed a bit yesterday (though only a dusting, not quite what the East Coast of the US got!). We've been slowly experiencing Edinburgh's Christmas season over the past few weeks and will be posting our Christmas activities each day leading up to Christmas.