It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

For the past several years, we've gone to Florida for Christmas, so we haven't bothered getting a Christmas tree of our own.  This year, though, we're staying home for Christmas and starting some of our own traditions.  

We went this past Saturday to pick out our tree and the girls had a blast running around, playing tag among all the trees.  There wasn't anyone else there, so I let them have at it (while I snapped away with the camera, of course).  The tree we chose was on the smaller side, since the "tree corner" by the fireplace isn't all that large, and we haven't accumulated all that many ornaments yet, anyway.

When we got it back to the house, Brandon set about getting it put into the stand outside and I worked at getting that corner cleared out.  The girls took advantage of the opportunity to play in the leaves out front--which still need to be raked up, by the way.

We ended up waiting until Sunday to do anything more than the lights and garland.  I coordinated the actual decorating, while Brandon ran back up and took pictures--which was completely fine with me!  Elora did really well, even with the more fragile ornaments.  (She dropped and broke the first one she tried to hang, but evidently learned her lesson and was very careful with them after that.)  It was obvious that she was loving every minute of it, and was exceptionally proud of herself.  

Kaylie on the other hand wanted nothing to do with the "safe" ornaments we gave her, once we broke out the glass "filler" ornaments.  We kept having to chase her away from them, and every time we took one away , it just broke her little heart.  She just wanted to help, like Elora!

Finally, we just put it all away until after the girls went to bed, and I finished up the tree and put out the rest of the decorations on my own--but not before using the timer on the camera to take a few family photos by the newly-decorated tree and the stockings over the lit fireplace.

Oh, I love Christmas!