I LOVE decorating our house for Christmas!
It is even more fun now that the boys get so excited.
We are a real tree family and broke tradition and got our tree a little early this year.
We weren't going to get one since Isaac is into everything, but the big boys were quite sad and Richard was confident Isaac would be ok.
So we got one last weekend.
The boys were fascinated with the cool air pouring down the tree after we took the netting off.
Isaac was curious, but fortunately the "pokey" long needles are just enough to keep him from touching it for more than a few minutes.
Not sure how long it will last, but for not it works.
Elijah has been my Holiday decorating motivator this year, encouraging me to get out the decorations as soon as each "holiday season" starts.
However, Jonah was probably the most excited this year to get the lights on the tree.
He was practically seizing with excitement as we were getting ready to decorate the tree.
(For those who have never gotten a real tree, you have to let it sit for about a day to warm up and open up before you can decorate. So the suspense of decorating the tree had to be postponed a whole day after we purchased it! That is almost a week in toddler time)
The boys were so excited to decorate, which makes it fun, but also a bit stressful for my control freak nature. I thought I made great improvement from last year though. That was the first year they had "helped" us decorate.
I am not going to lie.
It was difficult for me to let them A) touch all the ornaments, B) put them on the tree themselves and wherever the wanted, C) and relax while doing this.
However, I did organize them last year when I was putting them away, so all the ornaments that were able to be handled by the boys were in one box.
The boys had a blast putting all the ornaments up, and I didn't move too many of them!
Isaac kept his distance while we decorated and fortunately found his reflection in the window quite fascinating and thus distracting while we continued to decorate.
We only had a few ornament casualties this year.
Minnie was sliced in half...
(but I was successfully able to perform surgery on her and she is safe at the top of the tree)
Unfortunately, the third wiseman in the picture below (with the white scarf) wasn't so lucky.
He was decapitated by Elijah.
His head was too small to glue back on.
I was afraid this would cause tears, but Elijah's reassured me it was okay to hang it up because "the other guys still have their heads. They can just show the third guy where to go."
Good point.
Our tree is definitely dominated by superheroes.
Surprise, surprise right?
The star on top has always been put on by one child, taken off, and put on by the other.
We decided this year to do things a little differently.
The boys flipped a coin to see who got to do it this year, and Jonah won the coin toss.
So we will rotate each year, which should work great since Elijah will take a turn next year and Isaac should be able to handle it the year after when he is 2 1/2!
Another tradition we have is naming our tree each year.
On the way to get the tree this year I asked the boys what we should name the tree this year.
Elijah excitedly suggested, "Michael!"
(In case you forgot, Michael is Elijah's imaginary friend that is still a part of our lives almost daily)
You can read about him here if you missed it.
Jonah protested for a bit, but we did all agree that would be a great name for our tree this year.
So here's Michael...
Beautiful huh?
Sure brings a smile to my face throughout the day as I pass by him.
I especially love the warm glow he provides our living room in the evening!
After getting the tree decorated we talked to the boys about why we have a Christmas tree.
The symbol of everlasting life and how that relates to Christ.
They did a great job listening and participating in the conversation.
Hopefully we can keep Jesus the reason for the season as we get closer to the big day!
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