Oh Christmas Tree!!

We decorate the house for Chrsitmas during Thanksgiving weekend- depending on our other activities, it is Friday, Saturday or Sunday. That's also when Steve turns on the lights outside. We start putting those up in October to beat the cold but NOTHING turns on until Thanksgiving weekend. This year our lights are quite a show! If you live locally, they are worth the drive. They dance to the music - 4 songs. Just tune your radio to 106.9 when you pull up and listen for a bit and watch the lights dance! We've had as many as 5 cars out there watching at any point in time but often see 2-3 at a time.

When it comes to decorating inside, the girls LOVE to help. They help carry up the lighter boxes from the basement including the BIG nutcrackers that go by our fireplace and the big Santa and trees. They even helped each other carry some of the big bins that we put all the decorations in.

They went to my parents for Friday night of Thanskgiving weekend so I did most of the house by myself, but saved the tree for them to help me. They did a pretty good job as long as I kept the step stool moving around the tree. Otherwise, all the ornaments ended up in the same area. I had to rearrange a few, but not too many and of course do the really high ones (with Steve's help too). We do a very traditional tree. Each year the girls get at least one new ornament to add to the tree. This year they each got two heart shaped ceramic ornaments with their picture on them - some that I made on a digital scrapbooking company. They turned out well. Just wish I had thought to add the year to them when I made them. I'm going to take a permanent marker and add the year to the back. There are also ornaments from my childhood on the tree, some that I made, some that were gifts to me and one from my parents for almost every year of my life. The girls usually make some kind of ornament each year that gets put on the tree for a year or two - depending on how well they hold up. I love our tree. It reminds me of so many different experiences, friends and memories.

What is your tradition with your tree? Here are pics of the girls after they finished decorating. I did add about 40-50 bulbs all over the tree to fill in the gaps and add a bit more color after these were taken.

And of course, we have to make CRAZY faces!!