O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Picking up right where I left off...the day after Thanksgiving is always our Christmas Tree Getting Day! I love getting a fresh Christmas tree (or two!) each year & the tree may be my favorite Christmas decoration...I love the smell, the sparkle, the glitter & the green.

My mom came over to get in on the fun & help with the decorating & help wrangle the kids while we brought out bins & put up lights & so on!

The kids hamming it up on a bench at the garden center...

I was trying to contain them while we were waiting for Jeff...this was the only way to keep them from running through the trees playing peek-a-boo, splashing in the many decorative fountains, and just creating a general state of mayhem & foolishness!

Yaya & the girls!

Finally home, tree in the stand, lights on the tree (after Jeff had to go to the store to buy more lights since half of ours were burned out!)...and now finally, the long anticipated moment is here! 

We are ready to put ornaments on the tree! 

(You do notice that it is dark outside, right...it has been a long day!)

Sweet Lucy enjoys inspecting all of the ornaments (and only throwing a couple) & hanging some on the tree with her assistant, Daddy.

Picking out favorite ornaments (and of course Lucy in a chef's hat eating a wooden apple...you all do that when you decorate your Christmas trees, right?)

Last year we started putting a second tree in the den/playroom. We pick one that it perfectly kid-sized & decorate it with colorful lights & most of the kidsy ornaments. They pretty much are responsible for decorating this tree themselves & do a great job. Jack takes charge of putting the lights on it & then all the kids work together to decorate it. (Of course in complete & total harmony & peace, with nary a cross or unkind word...um, yeah right!)

It is a special tradition each year that Sophie & Darcy love to set out our Nativity scene. They do a very good job of opening all of the little boxes & carefully arranging each of the characters. We have this on a table in our main living area where we walk by it all the time. I have been enjoying that our Nativity is apparently animated this year...as each time I walk by all of the people & animals are arranged differently into little groups as if they have come to life & are moving going about their daily business. 

(Future post coming on this as I have been snapping pictures every few days of the changes to the scene.)

And after a few days of boxes & bins & tissue paper & bubble wrap taking over my dining room...the tree is done! And it has been enjoyed daily & nightly ever since!

We have a few Quality Control helpers...who like to make sure all the ornaments are hung properly & are all in the proper place for optimal viewing. 

Also, here's a little look at our mantle. I'll be posting more pics of the rest of our house decorated in a separate post. I love to use bright Christmas colors all over the house, but for the mantle lately I have gone more neutral with lots of gold & accents of green. Of course, it is always cozy & inviting with a nice fire in the fireplace...but we haven't had many fires this week with our temps reaching up to the 70s!