Christmas at the Porter House

The holiday season means many different things to many different people. As an Agnostic married to an Atheist, and with all of our local relatives being of the Jehovah’s Witness persuasion (and therefore not celebrating at all), we’ve come to make the holiday season fun and meaningful in our own way. We may not go crazy with gifts, attend mass, or have family to gather and celebrate with.. and we may be scrooges with the vast majority of holiday music… but we’ve developed our own traditions: We enjoy the annual viewing of Santa’s Slay – which, really, has got to be the greatest holiday movie ever!. We start brewing a batch of holiday wine. Last year, it was a gorgeous fruity mead, flavored with the peels of holiday “Cuties” oranges. This year, we used more Cuties peels to flavor a big bastard 5 gallon batch of cranberry wine. Yum! (*hic!*) … and then there’s the tree. No, we may not celebrate the holiday season in any traditional ways, but we figure we’re close enough to pagan to be able to sorta co-op THAT part of the holiday. Or at least that’s our excuse 🙂

Our fully “decorated” tree, as it appears on Christmas day!

Many people take a lot of pride in the final appearance of their Christmas tree. We do too, but our “final” is a bit different. Like many people, the decoration of our tree is a family event, with lots of help from the kids. Instead of taking place over the course of a few hours, ours takes place over the course of the whole holiday season.

Oh… and our kids have four legs and claws! Click through for photos of Christmas as it happens here at our house… be forewarned: cuteness overload ahead!

Rat

Jame

Tweak

Turbo

Our Tree

A progression… Martha Stewart, eat your heart out!

Confession time: The only real reason that we bother putting up a tree at all is for the cats. Yes, we actually bought our decorations with them in mind! Everything is shatterproof, bright, and is easily batted around the house. Most of the decorations are balls, and we find them all over the house for *months* after the tree gets put away. The cats really love it, as you’ve seen!

Happy Holidays, whatever – and with WHOMEVER! – you celebrate!