Less Time. Less Money. More Joy.

My husband and I will be heading home in December for the Christmas holiday. We plan on spending quality time with our family, eating good food, and enjoying our house in the US. Christmas is truly our favorite time of the year. Since we will not be in India during the Christmas holiday we decided to put up our tree here so we could enjoy it for a few weeks before heading home. 

I packed a small artificial tree in our shipment when we first moved to India so I got it out of storage and dusted off the branches. It took all of 2 minutes to do this. Then we realized we needed lights so we headed to our local store here in Gurgaon and purchased a nice red set intended for the Diwali festivities (Diwali is the Festival of Lights in India). Once purchased we headed home and decorated the tree with the bright red, lovely lights. 

I had not brought ornaments with us so the tree looked very bare. We spent the next day looking for anything that could be used as ornaments. Nothing could be found in any stores around here. So, at last we decided to string some popcorn for the garland and cut out white paper snowflakes. We listened to Christmas music for the next hour while we worked on creating these trinkets for our tree. All in all, it turned out nicely if I do say so myself. Later our dog Bella would begin to gently bite off a piece of popcorn as she would walk by the tree. Now it only has lights and snowflakes on it but I truly don't mind. :) 

This tiny tree has reminded me of how little you need to be content with your holiday. My tree in the US is about 10 feet tall and every year is decorated with glass ornaments, ribbons, and about 800 lights.... and it takes me about 4 hours to put it up. This little guy brought me more joy than my US tree ever did and took no time at all plus I got to spend good quality time with my hubby making our little crafts (and dog treats).

Less time. Less money. More joy.