Christmas Traditions

The day after Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year! And definitely not because of the after Christmas sales. I'm not brave enough (or crazy enough:) to go out in the wee hours of the morning and jab some elbows into other mommas on a mission for the latest toys. We continued our family tradition of going to WalMart to "cut" our tree. I don't know if it was because we went to the newer (nicer!) store that was recently opened near us, but WalMart was much busier this year than it was in years past. It wasn't horribly busy, but the past two years the store was practically dead so it was a little bit of a shocker.

Anyway, we got our tree, along with a few tree-decorating essentials (sugar cookies and egg nog). While we were picking out the tree, I saw a pile of limb clippings off in the corner. They had some trees on display to show the different sizes, so I'm assuming the clippings were from those few trees. Jared laughed at me, but I snatched those things up! There was no one out there for me to ask if it was okay for me to take them, but the way they were just haphazardly tossed to the side, I can only imagine they were going to be thrown away. I didn't want those beauties bio-degrading in a landfill without serving some purpose for greater beauty, so I'm giving them a home throughout our home. On the mantel. Maybe a wreath. Who knows :)

We got home and thus began the decorating. Except not till the next day. Actually, the day after that. Sunday. That's when we decorated. On Friday we were too tired. On Saturday we went over to Lake City to have our third and final Thanksgiving meal. This time with some of the local Rollins family. Charlotte had a blast playing with James, and has since not stopped asking about him, Toto, Pop, and Mel ("May-el" as Charlotte says, with a little Southern accent). On the drive home, Charlotte started screaming for no reason. She's not the best travel companion. We stopped in Baldwin to let her get out of her car seat and go to the bathroom, hoping that she might just have to poop. No poop, but she did calm down, until we tried to put her back in her car seat. She started freaking out again. We asked if she wanted the baby's seat to ride beside her. It was just tossed in the backseat, but after we snapped it in the seat beside her she calmed down. Strange child.

So, Sunday afternoon we finally began the decorating of the tree. And here come the pictures...

Charlotte glitterfied. All of this glitter was previously on a Mickey Mouse ornament. I am expecting to find some glitter in the toilet in the next day or two.


You might notice the red puffy eye in the above picture. She got into a fight with another mosquito. The mosquito won. This is what it looked like this morning.
Please disregard the fact that she was wearing the same outfit this morning as she was last night. I may or may not have been too lazy to put pajamas on her before bedtime. And this may or may not be the first time this has happened.

I'm sure you can't even tell, but her favorite ornaments were the blue, glittery balls.


She saw the topper, recognized it as a star, and from then on has been calling it a hat



Hanging an ornament other than a blue, glittery ball


We ended the evening by reading a musical book, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" to her


This time of year is special to begin with, but having a child to share in the excitement makes it all the more fun and special. She gets excited about seeing the decorations, lighted trees, and all the hooplah of the season. I know that's not what it's all about (it's really the hokey-pokey, right? haha:), and we're doing our best to teach her what the true meaning is, but it's so much more fun for me now that I have a family of my own who I can enjoy it with (or "with who/whom I can enjoy it", since you're not supposed to use a preposition to end a sentence with :)... I know that's the rule, but dadgummit, sometimes it just sounds better with a preposition at the end. And do you really expect someone who uses a word like "dadgummit" to follow all the rules of grammar?)