The Tree is Up!

Something I enjoy about being an adult is making my own traditions.  One of my favorites is decorating for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I am not down with Christmas before Turkey.  But once Thanksgiving is officially over it's game on.

We do a fake tree.  I know I know. Bad bad bad.  But it looks so good, good, good and is oh so easy to take care of....  Our current tree is more than 5 years old and is starting to show its age.  After an exciting start to decorating, we discovered multiple parts of the tree would not light.  We did what we could do decorate the rest of the house while Dave tried to fix the tree.  Eventually, we retreated to the living room to watch a Christmas movie while we waited.

Dave worked for a looooong time.  He never gave up, even when his back did.  The tree is now mostly lit.  One would have to really scrutinize the tree to notice. Thanks Dave.

With the tree in mostly working order, the kids wasted no time.  This is the first year I didn't put a single ornament on the tree.  I didn't even have to separate them out.  Sure some of the ornaments I might hide are out front and center, it is unevenly decorated, and the top is bare, but hey--the kids did it themselves!

With the tree done.  Linus decided to compose his Christmas list.  He discovered the magic of Google docs this fall.  His list is 51 items long.  At least 8 of them are sports cars so....  Robin decided he needed to make his own Christmas list.  He took it very seriously.

Another Christmas tradition I instituted is you get Christmas jammies the day the tree gets decorated.  This means the special Christmas jammies get a whole festive season of wear. 

I love the face Eileen is making.

With the house all decorated, I retreated to my room.  It is ridiculous how happy my bedroom makes me.  I need to find someone into interior design to really help me take the room to the next level.  My room is my sacred space where I decompress.  I love to be cozy.

An accidental tradition is going to the Seattle Center the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Most years we are at the Seattle Children's Theater.  One year it was McCaw Hall for the Nutcracker.  Either way, the traffic is always crazy due to the Seattle Marathon.  Will I never learn?  Today Eileen, her friend, Lillian, Robin, and I saw Mr. Popper's Penguins.  It was so fun to watch the three of them giggle their way through the show.

And so ends the start of another holiday season.