Paul Jo

In my last two posts I've written about my Uncle Paul, or Paul Jo as we refer to him to distinguish him from my mom's friend with the same first and last name. It sure was great having Paul visit. He's one of the funniest people I know, and he says and does the craziest things that always have me laughing. I'm always impressed with how smart he is, too. He seems to know a little bit about everything! Sometimes it's hard to keep up when having a conversation with Paul since he shifts topics so quickly, but I do my best to keep up! Paul speaks in letters and/or numbers as much as he does in words since he's always using acronyms or abbreviating words. I guess you'd have to meet him to actually know just what I mean, but he's really a hoot!

One of the things we did while Paul was here was set up/decorate my Christmas tree. Last year I bought an artificial Christmas tree a few days before Christmas since it was on clearance for 50% off. When I was a kid we always went to a tree lot and cut down a real tree the day after Thanksgiving, but now that my dad is gone and it's just my mom, Chandra and me at home we stopped doing the real Christmas tree thing years ago. My mom has a 4 foot fiber-optic tree that she puts up, but that's just a little disappointing, in my opinion! Especially since my sister Sharon's family usually visits for Christmas and she has six kids. Little kids need a big tree to add to the magic of Christmas (or at least I  do… it's just more exciting that way!) 

Anyway, he did that the day after Thanksgiving, and then he and Chandra decorated the tree while I watched and directed the next afternoon after we got home from seeing Lincoln at the movie theater. I don't think the tree turned out too shabby! It looks the best with the lights off, but it's hard to capture that on camera.

The ornaments on my tree are probably 50% store-bought and 50% homemade which I think is a nice blend. My older sister Kristin made most of my homemade ornaments for me and she did a great job. (And the tree skirt she made for me a few months ago works perfectly!) 

I found a tutorial for these cute Christmas ornaments on Pinterest earlier this year that I thought looked adorable, so I bought the supplies and my mom made them for me, with the help of my sisters Chandra and Annette. If you want to find out how to make them click here.