Christmas is my very, very favorite time of year, so as soon as Thanksgiving passed, we were all so ready to get in the Christmas spirit. Our first stop was to get a Christmas tree. This took two stops, as we first went to Albertson's and found that the trees there were super expensive. Charlie and Evie were very nervous about leaving without a tree, but we assured them that Hope Depot would be much better...
...and it was! The trees were 1/3 (or more) the price of the first place AND they had these awesome blow-up guys. We had to pose with them, and Charlie decided to be a football player for the picture (as you'll notice below).
Finally, a tree! Evie looks a little nervous about our bargain basement tree. ;)
Evie, decked out in her finest, was not overly concerned about being relegated to just girls' work, since she got to sit in the grass and snack on stick cheese and graham crackers.
I think he is barking instructions at me here.
Not at all embarrassed by his behavior. :)
Next up was Christmas lights! Daddy and Charlie took care of these for us, and it was pretty amusing. Charlie became incredibly bossy and chauvinistic during their work, and was quick to instruct me on what was "boys' work" and what was "girls' work." Basically, boys' work was anything that involved climbing the ladder. Girls' work was everything else. :)
Evie tried to get involved. She was incredibly "helpful" when she and Charlie were both on the ladder, but for some reason, Daddy wasn't a fan of that...
After it got dark, we put on our Christmas PJs and got to work decorating the tree. It was really fun this year because the kids so loved seeing all the ornaments and hearing the stories behind them. They were thrilled to find that some had been given to them and loved hearing about when they got them and why. And they were quite proud of the ornaments they made last year, so we've made sure to do a few more this year. They were much more careful than I expected, and did a pretty good job hanging them (although we tried to be careful about not giving them certain ones). We broke 3, but Daddy is apparently quite good at putting ornaments back together!
Loving his decorating...
This is probably right before one of the ornaments broke. :)
Charlie was so proud to put the star up on the tree.
[And notice Evie's finger-painted paper plate. It reminds me very much of one that Meg did when we were little and I always tried to "nestle" behind the tree. No luck with that this year: Evie insisted that it be right in front and "up high" (so it wouldn't break, of course).]
Our sweet little Christmas elves.
There have been many stocking inspections. Charlie's is green and Evie's is "PINK!"
John Charlie, our resident elf (need a picture here!) arrived with all of our Christmas books and they kids were so thrilled to see these again. Charlie, our little avid reader, was especially excited and has been poring over them since they arrived. Their favorite end-of-day reward right now is cuddling on the red couch and reading Christmas books. I love it! :)
All the Christmas cards are always another of my favorite parts of Christmas. The kids love looking them over too, but it has really helped having them up high this year. They treat them with much more deference and I don't have crumpled cards scattered around the house!
Our Christmas house! This makes me so happy. :)
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