I must apologize for being away! Having family stay with us for the holidays and our annual Christmas Eve party put me a little behind. But I have been seeing such lovely trees on so many blogs, I thought it might not be too late to share. I mean....you all keep you own trees up til at least the day after New Years, right? I remember one year growing up, we kept the tree up well into February.

The tree above is by the talented Maison 21 blogger, Christian May. A fairytale in white. Please visit and see Christian's wonderful pets, Richard and Mona, and how Christian translates his love for animals into the Christmas Spirit, here!

If you haven't seen the Devine Life of designer and blogger Michael Devine, you can check it out here. Michael has conjured up two trees this year. His "city" tree is pictured above.

And this is his "country" tree. I cannot have just one tree either. (Mine are farther down!) I love that Michael has a celebration with friends to decorate both trees.

My friend Kevin at Journal 703 has had a particularly poignant Christmas this year. This is his beautiful tree. If you want to find out just what the Christmas spirit is and what a very special person Kevin is, please visit Kevin here and send him your best wishes. Love you Kevin!

For a very cool tropical Christmas, visit Linda at Lime in the Coconut blog. She has a fantastic house and shows all of her wonderful decorations here. For another very powerful Christmas message from Linda, pause for just a moment .... click here.

This is blogger Paloma's tree from La Dolce Vita. She has included some pics of her house along with her decorations, so if you LOVE to see what other bloggers do with their decor like I do, click here.

I have a new blogger friend Lecia who writes A Day that is Dessert blog.....and who doesn't want a day that is dessert?!?!? Lecia lets us in to her warm and cozy life with wonderful recipes and her adventures with her family. She sent me this picture of her beautiful tree, and I hope you have a moment to visit her blog. You will be hooked.

This is my tree. I love blown glass ornaments, and add to the collection with gifts to my daughters every year. Some of the ornaments I have enjoyed since I was a very little girl.

This elf is from my childhood.

And so is this angel on the moon.

The mermaid was my favorite growing up. The swan and fruit basket have been added in more recent years.

The reindeer is also newer and came along the same year as this Santa:

The soldier is an oldy.

My older daughter loves all things Japanese. I found this glass lantern just last Christmas for her.

I love this squirrel, a gift to myself, because of the little acorn ornament attached to the hook at the top.

Like Michael Devine, I have more than one tree. I have collected straw ornaments over the years.... and added more from IKEA lately. I also love carved wooden toy ornaments. So in our basement library/office/kid space, I have this little tree.