In fact, it still does. Look a lot like Christmas. Pretend like I did this post a few weeks before Christmas and not a few days after. Thank you for your cooperation.
Out of love and respect for the old man, I patiently waited until the day after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas tree. (Don't tell him that I really didn't have time to put it up before, otherwise it would have been up the first week of November.)
We have ornaments that we have collected from all the places we have visited. We also have many ornaments that have been made by dear friends and family that mean so much to us. It is fun to pull them out every year and reminisce.
My angel putting the angel atop the tree.
Oh, aren't they so precious. It was not easy to get them into this position and as you can see from the photos below, it didn't last for very long.
I had a hankerin' to make some lemon whatever you call ums with cloves. So I turned on a Christmas movie and pulled out the lemons and cloves. The kids had fun doing it. It reminded me so much of my freshman year of high school when my BFFs Liz, Sara and Helen and I used to walk around with cloves in our mouths. Yeah for real. I could not resist. I had to stick some cloves in my mouth and walk around with them all day. In my mouth. Yep. That flavor took me right back to high school.
Addy made an A on her lemon
Zac lost interest pretty fast.
I don't think he was ever interested. Until he smelled them and stole one to put in his truck.
They did smell quite lovely for a few weeks and then the lemons started to look a little rough and we had to throw them away. Next time we won't make them so early before Christmas.
Then one day I saw a friend post a picture on facebook of popcorn and cranberry garlands that she and her girls made. I remembered the smell of popcorn and cranberries on a string that used to fill our home when I was a little girl. So I turned on another Christmas movie, popped some popcorn, pulled out some string and needles and put the troops to work.
Addy wanted to try a cranberry and it reminded me of the time when I was little and we were making these and my sister Farrah was probably only a few years old. She ate so many cranberries that, well, right in the middle of stringing popcorn, she threw up. Thankfully that did not happen with Addy. We had just been eating dried cranberries the day before and she learned that dried cranberries and fresh cranberries are not equal. I don't think this berry even made its way to her stomach.
We strung our creations on our tree in our kitchen. In the past I have wrapped Christmas books I have checked out from the library and put them under this tree. Then we would open a book every night in December and read it. I decided that I didn't like half of those books that we would read and so I nixed that idea and just put our own Christmas books under the tree. We have a book that has a story in it for each day in December and we read from that this year. (Also my fine on my library card is so large at this moment I don't dare show my face in the library! I'm gonna have to work out some kinda payment plan with them or something.)
And last but not least, we added a new fun decoration/tradition to our Christmas celebration this year. I resisted the madness that is 'Elf on a Shelf' for a good long while. But then my sister got one and my girls had so much fun learning all about this magical elf that I had to go adopt one for our family. We named her Trixie. This is where she was when we woke up the morning of Christmas Eve. Having a nice little marshmallow bath under the book tree. She returned home to the North Pole for her last time this season on Christmas Eve after we were all nestled snug in our beds. I must say that I enjoyed waking up to Addy's giggles every morning when she found Trixies new viewing spot. That sound alone made me wish I had given in earlier and made Trixie a part of our family sooner.
It's the most WONDERFUL time of the year!
