Get Thrilled. Do it Now.

we are late christmas decorators. it's pretty simple:for the most part we are just lazy. 

but (and here's where things get ticklish because of FEELINGS) we are also staunch no-christmas-until-after-thanksgiving people. that is our stance, but WE DO NOT JUDGE. so dont even think about taking that personally or trying to convert me or explain why your family puts up their tree in mid-september. i dont incredibly care and i am very happy to let you do things your way. UNFORCED BREEZY TOLERANT SMILE.

controversy AVERTED!

and even though i havent deliberately tried to inculcate my kids with this thinking (i spend my time trying to inculcate them with cheese), i guess they absorbed it just from the vapors in our Dukes-y airspace. i was trying to fudge my own rule a teensy bit on the day before thanksgiving by putting on the christmas Pandora channel while driving with judah, thinking, "let's make some mommy & son magic memories!" 

imagine my surprise when, far from dazzled by his holiday love for me, he growled at me from the back "NO CHRISTMAS MUSIC! BROWN AND ORANGE COME BEFORE RED AND GREEN!" okay, so that is a trademark keight dukes phrase and i just wasnt expecting it to come at me like that from my 4 year old. in the drive through of Arby's no less!  but it is true in our house and i repent and throw myself upon the mercy of my own court for having violated our policy. amen.

so we got our tree two days ago, on the 8th (early decorators will find this to be heresy). but this year we werent *just* waiting for thanksgiving to be over before we decorated. we were also holding off until our newest and most favority favorite bit of christmas decor arrived in the post!

see, my BFF raechel has this brain. and with her brain decided she wanted her favorite christmas carol lyric made into a pretty print. and she also has this brother in law who is a just mind-bogglingly talented artist, whom she asked to bring her lyric to life, and to just let loose with his skills into making this thing the ultra-business. 

i more than slightly think that he did:

as soon as raechel posted the resulted of caleb's work upon her mantle, i was gobsmacked (and i dont use that word lightly, because it's super heavy, guys). it was one of those things where your heart tries to jump outside your body and type in your credit card info SOMEWHERE so that you too may possess the THING (this also happens to me whenever i look at John Krasinski because of YUM).

i love O Holy Night above all other christmas songs, and it's not even close. each line is jam-packed with the power of exactly what jesus being born was all about, and the one lyric that raechel chose and caleb brought to life is by far one of my favorite in the entire song (i also love "chains shall he break" and "the soul felt its worth" aaaaaand pretty much all of them).

i was giddy when my print arrived in its fancy mail tube (insert vas deferens joke HERE...unless that is inappropriate on a christmas post). i immediately took it to our most stylish wall in the house and had a photo shoot.

ohmanohmanohmanohman this thing is beyond gorgeous!

every little detail is just perfect:

and yes, my king was born in a smelly stable, but he is in fact the king of kings, so i really felt like i wanted an appropriately "glorious" frame for this print. 

so we experienced a further decorating delay when i went to Michael's with an awesome custom framing coupon and it was still going to cost me more than its weight in snow leopard plasma to have one made. jesse and i real quick came up with our own method of making a frame from scratch for waaaaay cheaper and as soon as the paint was dry, i was ready to rock around the christmas tree my awesome new jesus art

i mean, honestly. never has a preposition looked so splendid

i feel like the word could be "potato" but i would still totally read "Thrill" because it's just so thrilling.

indeed

and then 2 days later we got our tree. if ever i have to choose one of these christmas items to keep and one to get rid of...the tree shall fall.

and lucky ducky us, we can all have this beautiful reminder of that baby and what he brought us. caleb sells these prints in 3 different sizes (for reference mine is a 20x20)  on his website. he is offering free shipping for all of yall with code K80 (thanks to raechel for that new nickname).

and, oh YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS (which is also my most used parenting phrase) caleb is giving away a free 12x12" print right this minute right here on this very URL [on this URL, on this URL, on this very christmas URL]  (right? who's with me?).

enter in the giveaway robot below (give it a second to load) and one lucky you will able to have some of this goodness outshining your tree before santa ever sets eyes on the inside of your chimney (should i not have mentioned him? did we get a controversy after all? man, christmas can be touchy on the internet!).

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