Decorating Our Christmas Tree!

I LOVE real Christmas trees! I know that tons of people have fake trees, but I grew up going to get a real Christmas tree every single year, and now I just can't live without a real tree! It's so exciting to go to a Christmas tree lot and find the perfect tree. I love having a tree every year that's a little different than the one the year before. We always get a Noble Fir, but no two trees are exactly the same! They smell so heavenly too!

So the weekend after Thanksgiving, we went and got a 6-foot Noble Fir tree. It's full and gorgeous and I was REALLY excited to get the lights on it and pull out all my ornaments! As soon as Stephen started to put the lights on it, Kirsten made a beeline for them. She is obsessed with lights, so she of course had to "help" Daddy with the Christmas lights. The Christmas lights just make her SO happy!

Stephen has been a good sport as I've taught him to put lights on the tree the way my Dad does it. I just don't like lights strung around the tree. They have to be weaved in and out through the branches, infusing the whole tree with light! It really is worth the extra effort! And I love putting colored lights on the tree, and white lights on the garland on our mantle.

Every year I get SO excited to open up my ornament boxes and put ALL my favorites up on the tree! My mom had a really awesome tradition of giving my brother and me an ornament every year, so that when we grew up and left home we'd have a bunch of ornaments with memories attached to all of them. I am definitely continuing that tradition on for my kids! I've also kept on collecting ornaments for myself too. I always try to find Christmas ornaments when I travel, and collect them from everywhere I can!

This one is from our honeymoon in St. Thomas! I smile every time I see that Santa Clause riding a dolphin!

I have way too many amazing ornaments to post pictures of them all. But among of my favorites are the blown glass balls I bought in Venice. They are gorgeous!

Guess who else loves my ornaments? The kitties! Herbie and Tigger go crazy, batting at all the ornaments and even carrying them up the stairs if they can get them.

This is Kirsten's ornament for this year. I got it at Disneyland!

Of course Kirsten loves the tree. She goes over to it at least 15 times a day, pointing at all the ornaments and sometimes pulling them off the tree. She can reach higher up than I thought she could too! Her favorite ornaments are the sparkly, glittery ones. Sometimes she'll go straight to the tree and say, "No, no!" since she's so used to me saying that when she reaches for certain ornaments. :)

She also enjoys grabbing the Christmas tree skirt and pulling it across the floor away from the tree, scattering pine needles everywhere and chanting "No, no!" while she does it.

When I turn the Christmas tree lights on every night, she goes nuts! She squeals and shouts and races to the tree so she can touch the lights and marvel at them.

Our beautiful Christmas tree!

It'll be a sad day for everyone in our house when we have to take the tree down, that's for sure!