Tree Trimmin'

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I began decorating our house for Christmas.  I like to enjoy all of the garland and twinkling lights for as long as I can -- but it needs to wait until after Thanksgiving, at least.  Down come all of the gourds and pumpkins and Fall foliage, to be replaced with greenery, bright lights and the smell of cinnamon throughout the house.  

It takes me about 2 days to get everything in place because I set up multiple trees, wrap garland around banisters and fill the mantle with greens, pinecones, cranberries and oranges.  I love setting everything up -- even if I end up with glitter everywhere.  And now that the kids are older, it seems to go even quicker and my 2 days' worth of decorating are spaced out with small breaks in between.

In fact, this year, the kids brought all of the branches up from the basement themselves and put them in place.  I strung the lights and then just sat in the middle of the living room floor and over-saw the process of opening ornament boxes and the hanging of years of memories on the tree.  

The pile of branches waiting to be sorted and stuck on the pole in the background:

Holding steady while Jimmy mastered the art of carefully putting a branch in place without bending the entire unit:

Not pictured: me, sitting with a hot cup of tea on the couch smiling while I watched the teamwork taking place in front of me.

The littlest helper, excited about what the month of December would bring this year:

Organizing the branches by size with Mia, our 13-year-old cat, supervising in the background:

Sophia and her bun; that girl has so much hair and her signature hairdo lately has been a high bun:

Legs that seem to go on for miles.  She is currently 5'2" (the same height as me!) after growing 2" in the last year.

Half-way done with the set-up:

I took a few extra pictures of Mia this year because it saddens me to think about it, but we don't know how many more Christmases we will have left with her.  She has been with us since she was about a year old and she is so special to each of the kids in their own way:

And just so that we know that Steve was "present," he watched part of the process too holding a single branch out for someone to put in place:

The top of the tree was Samantha's special job this year:

She could barely reach the top and I had concerns about the tree crashing down, but she managed just fine.  Another sign designed to remind me just how big the kids are getting.

Now the angel on the top caused quite an ordeal this year.  This is an annual tradition where I always look back at pictures from the year before to see whose turn in line it was.  And you see, it should have been Sophia's year to place the angel on top of the tree and plug her in.  

But, I was reminded that Jimmy was scared to do it two years ago.  We're not sure why but I think that it must have been daunting to a 3-year-old to be lifted high in the air (on Steve's shoulders) to then balance the sacred angel on the narrow top of the tree.  Knowing that he has never had a single, real opportunity to actually put the angel there, I merely suggested to Sophia that Jimmy could do it this year ... and she could do it next year.  Ugh, the drama.  Remember -- this is a really big deal in our household.  There were tears but she eventually agreed.

And so, Jimmy was the holiday hero.

After lots of lights were added, the kids began to trim the tree with all of their favorite ornaments.

My mom gets the kids a new ornament every year that is symbolic of something from that year.  Here, Jimmy is holding his blown-glass fish ornament from his 4th birthday party theme.

Sophia's birthstone ornament for February:

Jack's camo baseball cap ornament:

This was the first tree to be completed and the others shortly followed.  I had no intention of setting up four trees this year (plus the small one in Samantha's room), but I love how it turned out.  It's so easy now to set the trees on timers or to use remotes to turn them on and off.  All I would need to say to one of the kids as the afternoon started to wane into dusk was "Please turn my lights on!" or "Ambiance, please!" and someone was sure to go around and make sure that our house was cozy for the winter evenings.