I bet you’re thinking wow this picture looks a lot better than the ones that are usually on here. Well, that’s likely true. At least in terms of megapixels. I was finally able to upgrade my camera during Black Friday. I still don’t have anything too fancy but it is certainly better than the camera on my phone. The Nikon l310 I purchased was on sale for $99.00, it has 14 megapixels and a 21x optical zoom. It also has a wide lens and has a pretty nice low light setting. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it take AA batteries, but I figure I can get rechargeable ones if it becomes an issue. Suffice to say no more crappy pictures for this blog.
So… I spent some time today getting the Christmas stuff out. Just about everything is the same as last year except two things. The first is that I did not use the “Warm” LED lights this year and I went straight up old school and got the clear C7s. For anyone who is wondering- that was a wast of time and money. Last year I was convinced that the “warm white” LEDs that I bought looked cold and that the real C7s had a better glow. Welp, I can tell you that they are exactly the same. So its back the LEDs next year. The second change is in the window boxes. I happened into Home Depot today and they had an entire cart of pine boughs trimmed from trees that they had sold for free! So thanks to Home Depot, I loaded up my car with a couple of arm loads and were able to augment the crummy fake garland with the real stuff and it looks so much better. If I were you, I’d get in my car right now and get ’em before they realize they should charge for that stuff.
I also used the same pine boughs to wire together a garland for the mantle. I made the bunting out of some old wrapping paper I had in the attic.
I did purchase the Poinsettia, but the stockings and the little pearl garland were from last year. This is the second Christmas in the bungalow and it felt super awesome to go up into the attic and bring down almost everything I needed rather than going out to buy things. Hopefully, I can get the tree in the next couple of days. I would like to get some more ornaments for it this year. I only had a few on it last year so I think its ok to add.
Happy Holidays!
Ittybittybungalow 
Your house looks even prettier dressed up for the holidays! I really like the red ribbon on the wreaths and the bunting on the mantle. I never thought of using wrapping paper–good idea!
The house looks great!
And AA’s in the camera is actually not so bad – no need to have a special battery & charger. We keep several sets of rechargable AA’s on hand just for my camera and always travel with them & charger but can buy any AA’s if we get caught somewhere with a dying camera.
Love the lights outside!