Home on Hidden Oaks: On the 10th Day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me, a Christmas porch!

I may be going at this a little backwards. I probably should have shown you our Christmas porch on the first day, since it's the first thing you see when you arrive at our house. Oh well. Anyway, welcome to our Christmas porch!

I decided to keep things simple and welcoming on our porch this holiday season.

I'm about to go off track a little bit, but I want to give you guys the back story about this tree because it just makes me so happy. Not only do I love the way this tree looks on our porch, but it has sentimental value too. This tree was a house warming gift to us from my mom on the day we bought our house/got engaged. Reid and I had JUST walked in the door and gotten engaged maybe 15 minutes earlier, and we were sitting on the stairs (no furniture to sit on yet), holding hands and dreaming about our new life together, when we saw my mom scurrying around on the front porch like a little Christmas elf, setting this tree up for us, with a huge grin on her face. She didn't knock on the door or let us know she was coming because she didn't want to interrupt (she knew Reid was going to propose at any minute, but didn't know it was already a done deal!) She then headed back to her car to leave so we walked outside to ask her what the heck she was doing. She seemed genuinely surprised to have been caught (although we didn't have any curtains up on any of the windows, seeing as we had just moved in, so it wasn't exactly hard to see her out there). I showed her my ring (which of course she had seen several weeks previously when Reid first bought it), we hugged and laughed and then she came inside to see the house. After that my phone started to blow up as word spread to our friends and family that Reid had asked me, I'd said yes, and the big secret was no longer a secret. The rest of the day was a blur of pure joy as friends and family stopped by to see the house and share in our joy at our engagement.

SIDE NOTE: That evening my brother and Reid decided they should light the fire since it was chilly out and we were having our first unofficial house party. Because they are sooo smart, they didn't open the floo before lighting the fire, and we nearly burned the entire place down right then and there. That would have been quite a sad ending to an otherwise lovely day.

So, in a nut shell, this tree brings back memories of what is probably one of the happiest days of my life :) Moving along...