The day after Thanksgiving is too soon... I think not!

So maybe I am a little overzealous on getting ready for Christmas, but it has become much more fun now that both kids are older and get as excited about it as Andy and I do. So yes, the day after Thanksgiving we pulled our brand new faux tree out of its box in the garage and began to put it up. This is the first year since Andy and I have been married that we have gone artificial instead of real and it is a little disappointing but makes more sense this year then any other year. The house that we currently rent is much smaller then the one we were in previously and it is not set up in such a way to be conducive to A live Christmas tree. Plus, I have enough to worry about without wondering if the kids are going to make a giant mess or if the tree will catch fire and burn us to the ground. (Maybe I have been watching too many news demonstrations.)

Anyway, so out came the tree, which was painstakingly chosen by Andy, because even though it is artificial he still had to have the very best tree. It had to have pre-wired lights in color, not clear, and had to look more like the real thing then most of the ones you see in the stores. Costco to the rescue.

We spent a good half hour fluffing the branches to make them look perfect before bringing out all the decorations. With the kids wanting to help the decorating process took a little longer then normal and a large amount of ornaments ended up in a cluster all in one spot that was coincidentally as high as Alex's shoulders, so there was some redistribution that occurred afterward. Half the ornaments are plastic and half are glass, so the top half of the tree is decorated with glass ornaments and the bottom with plastic so as to discourage any naughty children from breaking them or hurting themselves on broken glass.


Instead of garland we chose ribbon, but Andy being the Christmas freak that he is had to have the perfect ribbon. So off to Michael's we went. While there we got other decorations and we really are going all out on decorating the inside of our house for Christmas. If I could convince Andy we would do the lighhts on the outside of the house too, but he doesn't want to because it's too much work.

Here is the rest of what we put up.




I really enjoyed putting the Lemax village up. It is so cute and I now understand how addictive it can be to start collecting these little buildings and figurines. Both Jack and Alex love it and get especially excited when they can turn the lights on and off. Since we have it connected to the outlet in the wall that is turned on and off by the light switch, it makes it easy for them to turn it on and off whenever they like.

Even Andy, who was a little resistant to the idea at first, really got into it and had to make it the best Christmas scene possible.




I wish I could have gotten a better photo of the village all lit up, but it doesn't photograph very well and if I use the flash you can't see any of the lights on in the buildings. It really is cute though.