This window in our library used to be the spot where we put a white Christmas tree every year, generally with blue ornaments, sometimes even blue dinosaurs:

And this was lovely, but, over time, the white Christmas tree (a thrift find) got sadder and sadder looking, and it got harder and harder to rearrange things to make the gaps left by sagging branches less noticeable. And so, finally, we said goodbye to the white Christmas tree.

And our sunroom used to be the spot where we put a very tall tree (for the sunroom is the only place where we can have a very tall tree) and decorated it with travel-related ornaments:

This was nice, too, but the sunroom is kind of a mess at the moment, as we transition out of really needing a playroom for Abe but haven’t quite figured out what to transition into yet, so I didn’t feel much like dragging out the giant tree this year.

But last winter my aunt and uncle were giving away a musical Christmas tree, with lights that coordinate with the music, and Abe spotted it over my shoulder when I was scrolling through Facebook one day, and next thing I knew we had a musical Christmas tree in our basement. So of course that had to come out this year. And what goes better with a musical Christmas tree than travel-related ornaments, right? And what better place for it when your sunroom’s in flux than your library, right?

So here we are (note blurry cat next to heat vent):

Abe wanted me to take a picture of Fergus in front of the tree, so I did. Interesting fact about Fergus: if it weren’t for photo editing software, it would be impossible to take a picture of him in which his eyes are visible (as opposed to just blending in to the furry black blob). Usually straight from the camera photos are pretty decent with my current camera and just need minor editing. Unless they’re of Fergus:

Then I took Abe’s picture. Abe is almost EIGHT, which is impossible to believe. Only in this picture it’s easy to believe because he looks like he’s almost 20 and is about to perform an overly earnest folk song for you:

Before I get to the travel ornaments, allow me to direct your attention to something else that is. new and cheerful in the library: my new rug!

It’s the Luxembourg rug from Rifle Paper Co. I’ve been eyeing it for forever, ever since my friend Nat bought the same rug awhile back. And I finally went for it as an early Christmas present to myself when there was a 30% off Black Friday sale. Note that it’s a printed design, not woven (which is probably why it’s pretty reasonably priced). I was a little nervous that it was going to so thin it would bother me or keep getting messed up, but no such problems. I love it, and I’m very happy to say goodbye to our old, stained Ikea rug, though it served us well for many years.

For years we’ve been collecting magnets when we travel (if you’re new, we have a travel trailer and try to do a lot of traveling, which I talk about on my other blog). A couple of years ago I decided to make some magnetized circles so we could use them as ornaments for Christmas and they could be in the trailer for the rest of the year. That tutorial is here.

So it’s super fun to put all the magnets up and remember places we’ve been, but we’ve gotten to the point where we have WAY too many magnets, and they don’t actually stay in the trailer the rest of the year because there are too many to display. We’re thinking we might cool it on the magnets now and start buying actual Christmas ornaments in some of the places we go (we can’t buy as many as magnets, since they’re a lot more expensive. But maybe that’s just as well, considering how out of control our magnet collection got). We have several such ornaments already, and I’m excited to start adding to them.

Oh, and we also made the garland and stars out of pages from an old road atlas.

Still happy with the thrifted table and the Ikea chairs in here, by the way. We had no idea when we bought them just how many puzzles we’d be doing in here during pandemic times. So many puzzles! We do have to vacuum the chairs constantly because the cats ALSO really like them, but it’s a fair trade for the velvety goodness that is the chairs.