25/52

I'm a bit of a mess this Christmas.  I don't know why I'm so behind.  It's not as if I don't remember that Christmas is coming; it's the same day every year (unlike Easter that moves around on the calendar and can sneak up on you if it's in March)!  But I do think that I need more than just the four or so weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas to prepare.  So for all of you scrooges out there - I need more time!  Yes, I need to start getting ready after Halloween!  It's not that I don't love Thanksgiving, but it's kind of a breeze to prepare for compared to Christmas (my mom and Papa make most of the food, maybe they disagree).

So we just put up our Christmas tree this weekend.  If you check out week 23, you'll see that we love our personalized ornaments.  And the kids have a lot of them.  So decorating the tree is quite a process in our family.  The Christmas music plays in the background, Brian assembles the tree (oh maybe one day we can have a REAL one) and strings the lights - making sure there are no holes and that the tree is evenly lit.  I unwrap and hand out the ornaments for the kids to hang.  Then the family room lights go out and Brian turns the Christmas lights on.  Commence the oooo and ahhhh - like we are watching fireworks on the fourth of July.  

Apparently the eye for hanging ornaments on a tree comes later in life. After the kids decorate it, I usually make a few adjustments (really?  Three ornaments on the same branch when there are several branches with NO ornaments?) - but not this year.  Who do I have to impress?  The only people coming to my house for Christmas this year is my family and well, they know that my kids are crazy!

Emma fought to hang the Zoey ornament.  Apparently Abbi hung it last year.

Abbi - hanging ornaments from her ear.

Isaac - with the coveted High School Musical locker ornament.

 And then after the big Christmas tree reveal (well, big is maybe a little overstated), there was a big of a family wrestling match.  They were nice enough to pause and pose for me.

Oooooo, Ahhhhhh

And once all the Christmas tree excitement wore off, I walked back in the room to Abbi standing on the ottoman.  Do you see the pure Christmas joy in her face?  This is the girl that sings Christmas carols ALL year round.  Some days I forget that she is fifteen.  I kinda like that. 

Two silly peas in a pod.

And can we just acknowledge that Brian officially weighs less than he did when we got married?  He's been running since August when we started training for the Zombie Run.  And a couple months ago he decided to start training for a sprint marathon and started swimming too!  You look great!  Can't wait to cheer you on!

So Christmas is next week.  Next week!!  There's still a lot to do, so I better go now...