Christmas Decorating

It has been an annual tradition for a long time now to try and set up the Christmas trees/decorations the weekend after Christmas.  I know that many like to do it before Thanksgiving so that they can enjoy the season for even longer, but I like to try and keep the holidays separate from one another.  On Friday morning (post-Thanksgiving), the kids made hot chocolate to enjoy; we set up some Christmas tunes on the speaker and we set to work on the 'big' tree in the front living room.

Sam was in charge of calling out which branches (they are lettered) she needed ...

... while the others separated and brought them to her.

This job used to take quite some time when my helpers were much younger.  Now, they are experts and we seem to get the tree assembled in no time at all.

Such a great looking crew.

Sam made sure to include Jimmy in the process, right up to the part where he wasn't tall enough on his own.

Once the lights were strung, the kids helped me find all of their special ornaments and added them to the tree.  

Note to self: Every year I tell myself that this is going to be THE year that I start separating the ornaments into boxes based on whose ornaments they belong to.  Right now, they are all mixed together in totes.

We have such a great collections of ornaments, each with a memory or a story to go with them.

Even Mia has her own ornament for the tree.

After we assembled and decorated the tree in the living room, I set up the tree for the top of the stairs and Sophia gathered special ornaments that she wanted to include on that one.

Side note: why do my kids love to go barefoot in our house in the winter?  I, personally, prefer socks on my feet -- sometimes even in the summer -- but they love to go barefoot.  Shiver.

And then later that evening, it was determined that it was Sam's year to put the angel on the top of the tree.  While she wanted her dad to lift her up, like he had always done in the past, I told her that she was big enough to do it herself now.  Ha!  She is almost 5'6" tall now!  

She dragged a chair over and I made sure to document this special moment once again.

Over the course of the weekend, I worked on a couple more trees, LOTS of lights and decorating my fireplace mantle.  I just love the glow of everything this time of year!