Decorating for Christmas

Today we started decorating for Christmas. We get out the tree first, make some holiday goodies, put on Christmas music and begin the week-long decorating project. Without young kids, the process wouldn't take so long.  

I have come to reality with, until they are older, my tree will not look like a tree out of a catalog. And that's ok. We want decorating the tree to be something they remember as fun. I do, of course scatter ornaments around to even it out but we let them decorate it, for the most part. Next year, I hope to get them small pink trees for their rooms. How fun would that be!? This year, to satisfy my need to have a tree you could see from outside, we got out our old tree for the front living room window. We got lights on it, but nothing else--we were too busy. That was going to be the pretty, look don't touch, tree. If we get around to it next year, great. If not, it will still glow from inside our window. And the family room tree will still be the tree the kids decorate. 

After all the ornaments had been unpacked, our family room tree still looked a little bare. We didn't have enough ornaments. Thinking back, after Audrey knocked down half of them the year before, and we only decorated the top half of the tree last year due to Allie pulling them off, we realized this was the first year we would ave realized we didn't have enough ornaments to adequately decorate this tree. 

Among the ornaments that do adorn our tree, is Audrey's favorite. It's her "Baby's First" ornament she was given in 2007. It's a baby in a bassinet. She coddles and holds it for days after it comes out of the box and won't hardly leave it on the tree. She begs to take it to school, to her room, and will often carry it all over the house, telling us when the baby awakes and when she goes back to sleep. Not until we threaten to put it away (it is porcelain after all) does she pick a spot on one of the highest branches to place her beloved keepsake. 

You can't decorate for Christmas without a snack. Our first holiday baking goodie this year: white chocolate covered gluten free pretzels. Audrey loves to sprinkle the sugar on them, often dumping piles on a single pretzel, burying it. Jeremy also smoked a turkey breast today while we decorated. We had it for lunch before heading to a college basketball game. 

More is better, is her motto

Yum!

our tree before decorations and fluffing

getting out ornaments. 

Allie loved the Santa ornaments

Sarah