As is our usual tradition, we break out the Christmas decorations the weekend following Thanksgiving. It now takes us several days to set up and I want to enjoy them for as long as possible, so as soon as Friday rolls around, I start taking all of the Thanksgiving stuff down so that when Seth is off on that Saturday, we can start putting up the Christmas stuff. This year, the boys were super into helping us put stuff up and actually did a good job of helping. They hung their own stockings for the first time which felt like a momentous occasion of some sort and Austin helped put the start on the tree. He didn't quite get it on so it fell and broke, but after some super glue and a little bit of drying time, it went right back up on the tree. Austin also helped put the Jesse tree ornaments in the correct box. He was really good and patient with this activity which was nice to see.
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| Hanging stockings... |
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One of my favorite decorations.
This will be different next year as I couldn't find a third coordinating frame. |
The boys also helped put the little plastic pegs into the ceramic tree.
It is such a great fine motor activity and they loved seeing it get lit up when they were all done.
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I get so many compliements on this.
Most everyone says "my grandma had one like that."
And that makes me so thankful I have one. |
Austin found the tree skirt I had gotten out of the box and decided it was meant to be a really fancy cape. He started twirling and twirling. I got to thinking about how the twirling must be a ingrained thing and girls just have more opportunity since they wear skirts. Around and around he went!
Then we decided to let them string lights on this little tree we put on the porch. These fun Santa lights seemed like they would fit well, but we ended up buying a short string of normal lights because the Santas were too big. They had fun putting the strand on the tree, though. Tons of ways they felt useful and accomplished and I loved all the little lessons and stuff they got by helping us work at Putting Christmas Up. (I joked to Seth "just imagine the workforce we will have here in a couple years!" and he responded that we should train each in a trade... AC, Electrical, and Plumbing. I said, but shouldn't they each know a little of all and he was like "maybe, but this way they'll all want to stay living near each other when they're older." and I was moved to tears imagining these boys all grown up and having families of their own and yet helping their brother with whatever trade they needed help with.)
As far as the big tree is concerned, I didn't have it in me to have us spend the time decorating with ornaments, so we just strung a bunch of different, crazy light strands we got from Gran's decorations, added our usual candy canes and called it a day. I liked how much more light the tree gave off with all the extra strands on it so much I might do that next year with a few strands of color lights. Then we'll have white for Seth and color for me!
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| before the star came crashing down |
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| Using the Cheat Sheet to know where to put them. |
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| Just waiting for cards to arrive and make this area pretty. |
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| New tradition: books wrapped to open 1 per day during the month |
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| As we started to do activities each day, they pilled up on this ribbon. |
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| All folded up in the boxes in the Christmas Countdown Calendar |
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Fewer lights this year because so many had died.
Hoping for color next year! |
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