Trim Up the Tree

 I'm having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit around here.  We finally have our tree up, but it really doesn't seem like Christmas time.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's that my two oldest kids aren't here.  My daughter usually does a lot of the decorating, and this year with her in college and not coming home for Christmas, I guess I'm missing all those extra decorations.  I feel bad for the little boys but I'm just not into extra decorating this year.  I don't think they know or miss them though, so I'm not going to stress out over it.

My husband and the eight year old worked to get the tree brought into the house last Thursday.

We have a 10 foot ceiling in the living room, and we still had to cut two and a half feet off the tree to fit it inside.  It's a really pretty tree though :)

We got all the lights on it that day, but no decorations until Sunday.  We have new LED lights this year that we bought at the after Christmas sales last year.  Wow are those bright!  The white ones are stars and they are very cool.  I'm going to look for more of those this year.
 

They brought it in and put the lights up while the four year old was napping.  He was in awe when he got up to find it in the house :)  It was pretty cute.

On Sunday afternoon, the boys got busy decorating.  I like to let everyone get involved.  Great Christmas memories.  I'm not one of those people who has to have everything just right on the Christmas tree.  I'd rather let them enjoy themselves and build great Christmas memories.

The baby latched on to a candy cane ornament made of bells.  I think it's funny that he was eating it, since he doesn't know what a real candy cane is :)

The four year old was playing with a little mitten ornament that is on a clip and clips to a tree branch.  He had it clipped on his finger.  He's the one I'm having a hard time keeping out of the tree now. He wants to play with the ornaments.  I expected the one year old would be the problem there but he listens pretty well and leaves it alone when I tell him not to touch.

  Monday night we did our annual tradition of watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  It's our favorite Christmas movie. 

Since we rearranged our living room for the daycare, we have to improvise when it comes to movie watching.  We get all the chairs and line them up facing the wall-mounted tv. 

The baby stole Daddy's chair.  He was pretty excited. :)  He didn't sit still for long though, and every time there was a song in the movie, he had to get down and spin in circles to the music.  Tuesday when I went to the library they had their Christmas movies out on the counter (the slips for them anyway) and I brought home the Polar Express and we watched that one too.  I'm on a waiting list for the Charlie Brown Christmas movie.  We really don't watch many movies or shows, so this is quite a treat.  (We might watch a movies once every month or two).  So anyway, that's pretty much it for my Christmas spirit.  Wish I could conjure up some more, but it's just not happening.  I'm so busy and overwhelmed this year that I've decided to call it good.  My shopping is pretty much done (still need a couple extended family things, and something for my husband, but I'm drawing a blank on what to get all of them...  Hopefully I'll be able to wrap that up on Saturday while my husband has ski team coach training.)