O Christmas Tree

Thanksgiving came a bit late this year, so as I saw a lot of other friends and family do, we decided to get our tree out a few days early instead of waiting like usual. 

We opted to try a new space for our tree this year too, choosing to position it in the corner of our formal living room rather than in the upstairs landing or nook where the kids often play. After shifting a few pieces of furniture around, we figured out how to make it work and Dave hauled in the box so we could get started.

The kids were so excited to help with the process. Even Reid, who I'm sure can't remember last Christmas and has no idea what we were about to do, jumped right to see what everything was.

Caleb, on the other hand, has a memory like an elephant and knew exactly what steps we needed to take to get this baby up and lit.

We didn't put any ornaments up that day, but you can tell by the looks on their faces just how excited the kids were anyway.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we got to help put up another tree; this time at Granny's. Having been through such a rough year, Granny wasn't feeling much in the mood for Christmas and decided she didn't want to decorate. If you know my grandmother, you know that this is definitely not like her, so my cousins Stacey and Allison planned a decorating party at her house to help her with the task and bring a little holiday spirit. They invited anyone in the family who wanted to come to join them, and since Dave had a big project to work on that day, it was a good distraction for us to get out of the house.

The kids just liked playing together...

Do you like Hadley's holiday placemat blanket?

...while the grownups got started. Allison was the only one of us who really knew what she was doing as she began shaping and assembling the tree. The rest of us just took our cues from her. Granny's tree was not nearly as easy to put up as ours was either. We debated throwing it away and chipping in to buy a new one part way through, but we got the job done...we may have to hunt the after Christmas sales for next year though!

It was a challenge trying to figure out how to get all the lights to work.

Stacey left the tree to us while she took care of the rest of the house. Boy, does Granny have a lot of nutcrackers!

Our biggest mistake of the day was not keeping Granny busy. She was in the kitchen loading the kids up on ice cream! Surprise, surprise!

After their tummies were full of sugar, the little ones got a chance to help with the decorating too. They took their job seriously, especially Hadley.

Reid ended up being the entertainment. Stacey put some Christmas music on her phone and little biggity britches got a hold of it. He danced and danced, stealing everyone's attention as he showed off his moves. And boy does he have them!

Meanwhile, our tree was still sitting undecorated at home. We decided not to get out much for simplicity's sake this year, but we finally did pull out a few items including the Little People Nativity set, a couple wreaths, and a box of ornaments for the tree.

Having already gotten good practice at Granny's earlier in the day, the kids went to work diligently filling the lower branches with the "safe" ornaments I handed them while I placed the breakable ones up higher. Typically I skip the fragile ones all together now that I have kids, but since the tree was in a low traffic spot this year, I thought it would be okay to add a few things up top.

Caleb grabbed his coon skin cap Aunt Courtney gave him - a favorite accessory lately.

Caleb asked to put the star on top.

Ever since we put up the tree, Hadley kept saying, "I have an idea - a star." I don't know how many times over the course of that week she reminded us that our tree needed a topper, so it didn't seem quite fair to me that her older brother got to put the star on. However, she found another star ornament and was very satisfied to add that to the top with help from Daddy.

It's interesting to see how kids just embrace Christmas traditions with excitement rather than questioning why we do silly things like putting up a giant tree and hanging things all over it. When you stop and think about it, I guess it's kind of funny how we embrace them too, but it sure is fun.

Reid was such a busy boy. He'd start off doing one thing and then was in to another. He pulled more ornaments off than he helped I'm sure, but I enjoyed his enthusiasm.

While it wasn't perfect, our tree turned out to be a right pretty even if the lower branches were a little overcrowded. I just left it the way the kids did it for the most part and they rearranged things several times throughout the month as they've continued to enjoy the ornaments.

The kids loved the colored lights...

...while Mommy preferred the white ones. At least we bought a tree that can give us the best of both worlds.

Other decorations that reappeared included "The McKinstry Family Snowball Fight in a Bucket" I ordered last year and...

...those crazy little elves. The kids and I had a lot of fun playing hide-and-seek with these guys. We do them a little differently than most families because the kids know they're pretend and I let them be part of the game. In our house, they aren't spies, just silly little friends who show up in December for some fun.

Caleb really got tickled over the girl elf hiding her eyes and wanted to know why the boys weren't covering theirs too.

One of my favorite things to pull out at Christmas time though are the kids' Christmas clothes. I love to "decorate" these little cuties in their holiday duds. Trying to get all three of them to actually look at the camera so I can capture their cuteness...that's another story...

Well it's only hours before these three will wake up to see what's under the tree so Mommy better quit blogging and get to bed. Goodnight, sleep tight, and Merry Christmas Eve.