Christmas Decorating

 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

I usually start decorating for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I know that some people like to decorate before that in order to enjoy the twinkling of lights a little longer, but I like to keep my holidays separate.  Besides, it usually takes me a full weekend to get everything hauled up from the basement, set out and then empty totes put back away.  It's a process, but one that I thoroughly enjoy.

Now that the kids are older, they are even greater helpers.  They can easily set up the trees by themselves and with a little supervision to make sure that no ornaments get broken (none did this year!), they like to hang their own ornaments.  I always come back and add the garland and then decorate the mantle, stair bannister and end tables, but that it typically afterwards.

Working as a true team to start assembling the branches on the large tree in the front living room"

The kids know, from years of experience, that the branches are all labeled and need to go in a certain order on the vertical tree stand:

Even Jimmy was given branches to add to the base:

I made a mental note this year that I need to start separating the kids' personal ornaments to make it easier for them to find in the Christmas decoration totes ... and also so that they have them when they have a Christmas tree of their own one year.  

Right now, the individual boxes are labeled (sort-of) but it would certainly be easier to separate into different totes with their names on them.  

Every year, my mom (Grammy) gets the kids a special ornament that is symbolic of something in their life that year (usually it related to their birthday party theme) and they LOVE finding those through the years and hanging them on the tree.  Here, Jimmy is hanging a dragon ornament from his 2nd birthday when we did a Unicorn and Dragons theme for a combined birthday party with Sophia.

Sam is holding Mia as she hangs an ornament for Mia (and for Watson, Mia's son that died a few years ago).  It is always hard to hang ornaments and remember ones that we have lost ... like Sam's hamsters.

Picking out ornaments from one of the huge totes that we fill (and unload) every year:

It was Sophia's year to put the angel on the top and we determined that she is too big for her dad to lift up there (ha!), so she used a chair instead:

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Later that afternoon, while Samantha was at basketball practice, the other three kids help me set up the smaller (ahem, more narrow) tree in the back family room.  This one has all of my special kitchen ornaments with a red and gold theme.

Why, yes.  That IS a nerf gun dart holder on Jack's wrist.  He paused his nerf gun war with Jimmy to help with the tree.

There two Hallmark series ornaments on this tree that Steve's mom started for me before she died.  I keep the tradition going every year by making sure to purchase the new ones and the kids LOVE seeing them (Cookie Cutter Christmas and Season's Treatings).  

Opening boxes of ornaments:

My partner in crime in everything; cooking in the kitchen and decorating Christmas trees:

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One weekend, while the other kids were gone, I decided to work on a special holiday craft with Jimmy.  His 'love language' is crafting and I knew that this would be the perfect thing to decorate our pantry door.

We began by tracing his hand in all different shades of green paper and cutting them out.  We then arranged them around a paper plate with the center cut out:

 

I let him use one of my hole-punchers to make red circles to represent the berries on the wreath.  Then, he used a glue stick to attach them to the wreath:

Finally, I added some ribbon and it made the most beautiful wreath to hang up inside the house.  I plan to pack it away every year (with the year written on the back) so we can see how much his hands grow form one year to the next:

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