Today’s Fortune: An unexpected payment is coming your way!

Wow!! That is a great fortune! I’ll bet that means that Santa is going to bring me a bunch of quarters! I have worked hard to make the “Nice Monkey List” again this year… I hope he has noticed!

A few days ago, I got to decorate the house for Christmas again! That is one of my very favorite things to do, and Mom let me do almost all of it by myself this year. Puglet assisted me. He hung the ornaments on the short branches. The first thing we did was decorate the sparkaly lime green tree. We had to be very careful, because the ornaments are glass ones that Mom made, and they will break if you drop them.

We got out the set of Christmas nesting kitties, and put them at the bottom of the tree. They are my favorite decoration. They are starting to look kind of shabby, and Mom says we will keep them inside the house after Christmas, instead of storing them in the garage with the other decorations. This is good, because it will make them last longer, and I will be able to look at them all the time.

We got out the Santas, too! We put them all on the fireplace hearth, and I posed with them in my Santa hat. Mom said she could barely tell which one was me.

Puglet sat on the lap of the biggest Santa to practice telling him what he wanted for Christmas.  I tried, but I was too big and kept falling off.  I guess I will just have to write him a letter.

Our newest decoration is really our oldest decoration.  It is a set of vintage accordion paper ornaments that Mom found at Buchanan’s Flea Market when we went there in November.  Mom said that she used to love ornaments like these when she was a kid, and that they are something called “nostalgia.”  Nostalgia means fragile and easy to tear up.  Get Adult Supervision when you are decorating with nostalgia.

Me and Puglet decorated the button and spool tree next.  We had some orange tinsel from Halloween that I tried in it, but it looked tacky, so I had to pull it out.  I got to hang the special Santa ornament from my Auntie Karen on it, and the special knitted sweater ornament from my Auntie Kelle, too.  It is really nice to have special ornaments that make you think of special people.  Mom says they are “sentimental”.  This means they are treasures.  Even better than the pirate kind.

The tree still looked kind of empty when I got all the buttons and spools and the ornaments from my Aunties hung on it.  Mom says that is how it has always looked, but I got a great idea!!  I filled in the gaps with our miniature sock monkeys!  They were gifties from lots of our Aunties and friends, so we had a bunch of them in different colors.  The tree looked awesome when I got them on there!

Mom liked that picture of me so much that she used it on our Christmas cards this year!  I was really glad to be selected as the Official Christmas Spokesmonkey!!

It won’t be long ’til Santa gets here!  I have already started getting packages from Aunties and friends!!  I will tell about the one I got from my pal Big Monkey tomorrow.  Mom is taking me to meet Dad for sushi before Knit Night, so I have to get ready.    Happy Holiday Decorating, everybody!

Today’s Vocabulary Words: Nostalgia, sentimental.