Christmas Tree of Memories

Last night, Bret and I took a trip out to Union Square to pick out our Christmas tree.  We've had some beautiful trees in the past, but I've got to say that this year's tree is definitely my favorite.  I must admit that I say this every year!

As usual, we topped our tree with our unusual penguin finger puppet.  Bret and I bought the penguin for our first tree when we couldn't find a tree topper that we liked and now it is a tradition!

As I've mentioned before, Bret and I like to collect ornaments as souvenirs whenever we travel together.  In that way, our Christmas tree is filled with memories every year!  Here are some of my favorites:

We picked this one up during our most recent trip to Portland, Maine.

This is a cool ornament made of recycled magazines that we picked up in Ogunquit, Maine.

This one was given by a friend since Ortiz is one of my fave players.

This gorgeous ornament depicts Beacon Hill and
was purchased during our most recent trip to the MFA.

Who can leave Martha's Vineyard without going to the Black Dog?

Bret and I are always taking photos of ourselves in Adirondack chairs.
We fell in love with this ornament in Ogunquit.

I want to share one final ornament in light of tonight....

As most of you know, Bret and I celebrate both holidays in our household and tonight is the first night of Hanukkah!  We will of course be celebrating by lighting the candles to our first-ever menorah, saying the prayers and eating lots of latkes!

Are you already in the holiday spirit? What are some of the things you love about this time of year?
And don't forget to enter my Lea & Perrins giveaway here!

Christmas Ornament Organization

Whenever I am someplace new, I love to pick up a little trinket to remember the place.  This probably explains the collection of shot glasses from college (which are now collecting dust in a box at my parent's house) or the miscellaneous T-shirts in my closet.  Over the past few years, Bret and I have started collecting Christmas ornaments whenever we go away - whether it is in Key West or Ogunquit.  These are the ornaments we picked up just last month alone!

Although our general ornaments (the sets of matching bulbs) have their own boxes, we've been storing our travel ornaments and our sentimental ornaments haphazardly in a holiday box in our linen closet.  In general, this closet is quite the mess and it really needs some serious organization.  Over the next few months, we are going to slowly organize the closet and I decided to first tackle the holiday ornaments.  As a sidenote, I've taken a "before" picture but I'll post it when we're done organizing the linen closet shelf by shelf - and this could take awhile!

After doing some research online, we discovered these great functional boxes at the Container Store that fit perfectly in our closet.

Since Bret and I had a Zipcar reserved on Saturday, we decided to pick up two of the ornament storage boxes while we were out.  These boxes are great because they are sturdy but not heavy, which makes it great for that super high top shelf!  You can alter the size of each row and column to fit your ornaments.

And afterwards, the ornaments all looked perfect in their own compartment!

Our apartment always looks tidy and uncluttered, but our linen closet is definitely our secret messy spot.  Tell me, where is your secret messy spot in your home?