decorating the tree

Well, it took us a while but we finally decorated our Christmas tree.

I start listening to Christmas music in October and I always like to get my tree up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving.  We kept meaning to every day but life with a newborn is much slower and unpredictable.  Finally, I said to Dave last night, "Let's just decorate the tree tonight after Katelyn is in bed."  I thought it would just be much simpler and we could surprise her with a beautifully lit tree in the morning.

Dave had a different idea.

So, against my better judgement, I decided we could pull out the decorations tonight as soon as he got home from work.  That was another thing.  I wanted to opt for simplicity this year.  I announced that we would only get out the tree and our stockings, nothing else.  Dave convinced me to get out nearly everything else.  Every time I would tell him to put something back into storage, he would find a place for it out in the living room or kitchen.

He didn't even complain about "fluffing the tree" which is his least favorite Christmas chore.

Well, it turns out he was right.  Kate LOVED being a part of the decorating process.  She carefully helped unpack things and waited for instructions as to where they belonged.  When she ran out of things to do, she just started chanting the word "Christmas" over and over again.  It was pretty adorable.

When it came time to actually put ornaments on the tree, she would pick up each one, hand it to Dave or me, and then point to where she wanted it to go.  We had a lot of similar ornaments clustered together but I think that really gives a tree character.  Also, I may have moved things around when she wasn't looking.

Careful ornament placement takes some serious thought.

This girls loves her silly faces.

Kate wasn't entirely sure what the tree skirt was for.  She decided that it would look best around her neck like some sort of fancy collar.  Who knows.  Maybe tree skirt collar is the next ugly Christmas sweater.

Before Dave had even finished "fluffing" the tree, Kate was getting super excited about the star.  She kept walking around with it and talking about the star and asking for help to put it on the tree.  She tried just setting it in the branches a few times but with no success.  When it was finally time to put the star on the top of the tree, Dave lifted her up to let her do it.  It was obvious she thought she was pretty grown up.

At the end of the night, we turned out all the lights and sat down on the couch to enjoy the beautiful decorations and capture the moment with some family selfies.  In the end, I'm glad we got everything out even if I will constantly be picking up ornaments.  This was such a fun night.