This year, I decked the table.

This year, instead of decking halls, I decked the kitchen table.

 I have good reasons, however....

1. Trixie. Despite appearing laid back in this photo, she is a fiesty little devil who decided to take down our Christmas tree not once, but three times the last time I put it up.

2. Our Goat-dog. Oh, don't let that adorable face fool you. This dog is bent on destruction and will eat and/or drag off anything not nailed down.

This is the lovely white tree that I was so proud of. Then the cat climbed it and knocked it over. Three times. Fearing it's highly unstable(and since about half the ornaments were broken), I decided not to put it up this year. Sadly, I missed out on the after Christmas tree deals last year and don't have a replacement  for it. This photo was taken after putting it back up for the third time and moving the ornaments from the back side to the front to replace the ones that were broken.

And then there's this. My coveted aluminum 50's Christmas tree.

I adore it! But the dog is still much too destructive to be trusted around it, so I'm holding off on putting it up till next Christmas. Surely she will be calmed down by then...and I will have made a lovely retro tree skirt for it as well.

So instead of two fun and funky trees, my Christmas decorating this year consists of a sparse but shiny aluminum Charlie Brown(ish) tree and a tablecloth.

And I'm OK with that. Christmas spirit isn't really found in the trees and trimmings, anyway. It's the Christmas spirit inside us that really counts.

Meet Mya

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I had seen a sweet little puppy face on Petfinder.com ...WELL, turns out we were able to adopt that face(and the puppy attatched to it)! We brought her home Saturday, and she's been a wonderful addition to our family of furballs!We got Mya through an animal rescue organization. She was a stray who was picked up and taken to a local shelter. She was adopted but was returned to the shelter when the first owner couldn't get her potty trained. Later, she was placed on petfinder.com by the rescue orginization and we were lucky enough to find her.She's one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met. She LOVES to play but is pretty laid back most of the time. The four cats aren't thrilled that she's living with us, but everyone seems to be slowly adjusting to the new addition. Potty training is going slowly...I'm guessing w/her background, she never had much structure or practice w/it. She's about 6 months old, so still a pup, and I believe she'll get it eventually. She's smart too! She's already pretty good w/sit and we're working on down. Probably should have started with "come" and "stay", huh.