christmas at our studio

These days, when I'm not working slllllowly on my finals, I'm begging P to put on Christmas music and decorate our apartment with me. (Ok. I am doing that while I work on finals, too, but it is more consistent when I stop!) As a result, our studio apartment is a mini-winter wonderland right now, complete with tiny tree and stockings!! And tonight P took photos of it all, and they look terrific.

Come on in!

First things first -- our tree. Remember when lights were all she had?? Well, now we've added the LOVE banner from our wedding (seen here & here), some small ornaments, and a Christmas bear that I gave P as a subtle ask-me-out Christmas gift 5 years ago.   ;-)

{By the way, we decided to forgo the popcorn-strand idea, lest it encourage the little friends we evicted last week to come back!}

Someday we'll top our tree with a star or maybe a crown, 

but for now we have a little bundled cutie-pie swinging from the branches!

Next up -- this nativity set was something I bought in Peru on a wonderful, magical trip with my mom three years ago. I have been saving (and saving and saving) it for when I had a home to put it in. I think it is so beautiful, and the figurines are in a very Peruvian style. Also, a non-white holy family is always good! Not that it quite balances out years of racism within the church and, like, the crusades, but, erm, maybe it is a start. We had a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus in the nativity on the quad one year at Georgetown and it was...well...improbable for a trio of Israelites, to say the least! But I digress... 

And actually, as for our other nativity... Ok, I know I just said it's best to not have a white baby Jesus, but this is different...they aren't that kind of white! You know what I mean. Right? Anyway! This nativity was a present from P's mom last Christmas -- it was so fun to get -- it felt like the first thing we'd found for our place together! We love it. 

Last but not least, we have some stockings hung on the kitchen counter with care! 

We don't have a lot of decorations -- they all fit neatly in one small box! -- but I have to say, there is something magical about changing your house for the holidays, especially this one. It feels like a tiny teeny way of saying yes, there is something about art that matters, something about beauty that helps us see certain things more clearly.  Like Christmas. :-) 

Yay!!