Kickin' Off the Holidays

We have always put up the Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, but this year was different.  Since my sister has had Thanksgiving and sometimes gone back and forth with having it at her house due to being tired or having other things going on, I made reservations for our Thanksgiving feast.  One thing after another happened and the party of 20 dwindled down to eight (my family and my sister's).  My sister and I decided that we would skip our family Thanksgiving this year and focus on other things, like decorating our homes for the upcoming holiday.  I never thought I would say this, but I loved the idea of staying home and getting things accomplished rather than fighting the crowd over dinner with complete strangers.  So, that is what we did.  And because we were home on Thursday, we put up all of our decorations on Thanksgiving, making it easier to relax the next day.  What a load off!

The boys had fun helping me put the ornaments on.  Liam is really into the Christmas spirit this year.  I think he mentioned putting up the tree a gazillion times since Halloween!  He was finally able to do what his little heart was yearning for over the last two months and couldn't have been happier.  Landon loved helping too, but his enthusiasm wasn't nearly as heart-warming as Liam's.  It's an age thing.

Liam knows about Santa and tries to be the good boy Santa wants him to be.  He really wants those presents, let me tell ya.  Speaking of Santa, my friends are constantly pressuring me to get an Elf on the Shelf for the boys.  They mentioned how it can help with behavior if the kids are really into it.  Not sure what I want to do.  Liam would love it, but wouldn't keep his hands off of it (or at least stop asking to touch it).  Landon would be sneaky and move it/hide it.  Fail.  If anything I would like to have one for photography purposes.  I think you can capture some pretty cute/unique photos of the elf, thanks to the good ol' inspirational site Pinterest.  Anyway, enough about that.

For the longest time I have been wanting a tall pencil tree for our living room.  The other one we have is about 7.5 ft. and has a girth of 5.5/6 ft.  This was taking up a lot of room in our small space.  And try having twenty-something people in your house on top of that.  It was bugging me.  Finally, this year was my magic year.  I knew if I didn't break down I would chicken out and end up right where I started.  I can't express how much I heart this tree.  It not only saves on space but it is 9 ft. tall and pre-lit.  The convenience of the pre-lit alone was enough to buy the thing.  With our other tree we were going through about five or six boxes of lights, then some of them would go out.  It was a real pain and something I wasn't willing to tolerate anymore.  The added bonus to the new tree is it's safe.  It's not a fire hazard like our other one.  I'm really happy with it and look forward to using it every year!  Now, on to the photos....

The boys opening the new box.  Somehow this became a huge play toy when it was emptied.  Shocker. It's always the cheap stuff that kids love.  But strangely, the bubble wrap wasn't as much of a hit.  Landon is usually all over that stuff.

 

As you can imagine, I had to rearrange the ornaments a bit.  They all clustered around the bottom.  Liam being four...well, that's self explanatory.  Landon is a boy with no decorating skills whatsoever and he's only a fraction of the height of this tree.  Out came the ladder, which is the first time in history this has happened since we've owned a Christmas tree.  Good times!