Decorating the Tree 2007

Okay, if you're in our family, you know that you've just GOT to have a "fun-fight" in regards to picking out the Christmas Tree every year. For Mom and D it's always that Mom wants a Frasier Fir while D wants a native Cedar, . . . and for us, it's that Brian wants to choose a tree that's a bit too small and Noelle wants to choose a tree that's WAY too big. So, no, this is not our Christmas tree, but I am jokingly pointing to it because it's 12 feet tall, and it's the one I had my eye on when we drove by yesterday. Ha! : ) More about this fight later, . . .

Yes we're all wearing our Santa hats for the occasion (except for poor Annie, who doesn't have one yet). Still, at least she looked like a snowbunny. : ) This is the first year we haven't found the perfect tree right away. All the trees seemed to be six feet or eleven feet, with nothing in between. (Was this because of the drought?) So we went all the way to Meadowmont before we found a good one that we could both agree on. We usually get our tree from Saint Thomas More to support the school, but this year they're not selling trees at the school anymore! (Oh no! One of our traditions goes kaput!) They partnered with the growers selling in Meadowmont, but you had to buy coupons from the school or the Church office, . . . well, that left us out, . . . we were there ready to buy already.

We were going back and forth between one tree that I liked that was WAY too big (surprise!), and one Brian chose that, oh yeah, I'll admit turned out to be just right. They always look bigger when you get them inside. Ha! : )
And, can you believe it? I'm actually wearing the Santa hat I purchased at Coral Square Mall, my junior year of high school! It's still got the glitter "Noelle" on it, too! (I like it the best because the white puff ball on the end isn't heavy, so it doesn't flop around.) Just thought this picture was a cool perspective of Annie and I.


Why I didn't take a picture of the tree, I'll never know, but I did get this pic of Leia keeping up with one of her own traditions which began an astounding three years ago! Picking up "sparkly food" for the reindeer! (That is, gathering bits of left-over pine boughs.) This began ever since Leia Rose received her "Rudolph Guys" from Oma and Papa that year, and after she first saw the first part of Santa Clause, the Movie (where the reindeer all eat "sparkly food" to be able to fly. A GREAT movie, by the way, to get a kid into the Christmas spirit. Well, the first half-an-hour, that is. We've never shown Leia Rose the rest. Just the part about how Santa becomes Santa is SPECTACULAR!)

Then it was time to get home and begin the popcorn and cranberry garland. Which brings me to an interesting point. We borrowed Miss Laurie's air popper so we wouldn't have oil & salt hanging from our tree this year, and seeing that the popper got so wild with popping at the end of every cycle, I thought it would be fun for the girls to watch, so I put the popper on the floor and let the girls watch. And if you see the video at the end, you'll see Annie watching very perceptively at Leia as she eats a piece of popcorn, . . . and my original thought was "oh no!" . . .
. . . Because here is the next picture I took, . . . of Annie eating her first bite of popcorn at one-and-a-half!!! Yikes! Choking hazard! (Which does, by the way, happened to be my pet peeve considering I did have a choking experience at Furman. But, you know, here was what was going through my mind. "Annie gets shut out of so many things, . . . let's see if we can involve her in this. I know! I'll put her on the floor to let her watch the popper go! Oh no, there's Leia eating a kernel, . . . and there's Annie doing it too! Oops." And, of course, she loved it, . . .
And went for more, . . .

. . . and still more!
, . . . but Annie couldn't help with the garland, so I'm really glad she got to participate in that one small step. But even Leia was only interested for about 10 minutes, so it was time to bring the tree in. And poor Annie, she napped for the ENTIRE tree-trimming. Thank GOD she ate the popcorn!
And strangely enough, Leia and Brian started a strange tree-trimming tradition of eating "frosted nerds" while trimming. (Mamma did NOT like this idea.)
Here is Leia "helping" bring in the tree.
Looks funny when it's still in its little baggie, doesn't it? And, um, Brian was right, it was the perfect size.

(But, gosh darn it, one day we're going to the Wright's Tree Farm again in SC and I'm GOING to get one of those really tall, two-story, skinny trees and put it in our family room. I AM! Just like two years ago it was D's turn, and Mom let him get the Cedar he wanted. And I have a really funny picture of her giving a "thumbs down" for that tree.)

Here is Leia Rose hanging the first ornament: the special tree she made yesterday. And what follows are a few fun moments we like to document every year.
Leia hanging the special "pudgy bunny" ornament that we say looked just like her when she was two months old. Here she's trying to make the same face as the bunny. : )
And here is Leia Rose with the keepsake ornament holding the green ribbon-curl that she curled around her pinky, again when she was two months old.
And here is Brian reading the little "My First Christmas" book/ornament, with pictures from, again, when Leia was two months old.

We have one box of glass ornaments wrapped in tissue paper that, when all the ornaments are out of them, make great "snow." Leia had a BLAST doing this for a long time. As well as making piles and jumping into them.
And she was very proud to have arranged the Nativity under the tree this year! (I had to love that she was putting her face under the special Japanese girl that Auntie April made for me a few years ago. It's just what I used to do under Mom's.)
Then Annie woke up, and here's her first glimpse of the tree.
I think this picture of me is hilarious! I'm quite obviously more excited than she is.

And then we let Annie hang the last two very special ornaments. This one has my all-time favorite picture of Mary and Jesus on it.

And this one is the little mouse that my own Montessori school teacher bought for me when I was 5.
After dinner tonight, the girls were both allowed candy canes.

And then we gathered around the Advent Wreath to begin our special Advent traditions. First we light the first Advent candle (because it's only the first week of Advent) and we pray the special prayer that Oma created for us when I was little. ("Dear Jesus, please bless this wreath and the people who use it. And as we kneel before it, help us to prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus, and remember that Christmas is HIS birthday. " For the first week of Advent: "God, make my life a little light within the world to glow, a little flame that burns so bright wherever I may go.") The we say the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Next we do the Jesse Tree, which I worked on heavily last year. It's a large felt tree that you add a felt "ornament" to every day of Advent representing Jesus fulfilling the promises of the Old Testament. Today Leia Rose added the serpent to the tree, . . . the reason why we need Jesus: original sin. We also added the stars (because it's the second day of December), because that's how numerous God promised Abraham's descendants would be. And guess who was one of those descendants? Yep. Jesus.
And after we read from yet another Advent storybook, we get out our very special Advent Book where each day has a special door revealing, Biblically, the story of Jesus. Then we sing songs. Each person picks a song about the Baby Jesus (and Mamma plays guitar) and then someone gets to choose a secular song, too. And we always end with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."