Happy Holidays!!!

Poor Thanksgiving doesn't stand a chance this year! It's all about Christmas! I am so excited this year I can't stand it! I have always loved Christmas- but this year, I do even more so. I don't know why I am so excited... Maybe it's because last year we moved just ten days before Christmas, Put the tree up just a week before, and didn't even put out any of the other decorations. I usually like to decorate the day after Thanksgiving but this year I did it a week before. Dallas thinks I'm crazy. I even put up lights outside and that is something we have never done before. The year after we got married, I bought a bunch of lights for the outside of the house and here we are, 9 years later, and those lights were all still in their boxes- never been used because I could never get Dallas to put them up. So this year, I put a few up myself! and while I was at it, I put the tree up too! I ws a little upset because as I was getting out all of my christmas stuff, I realized that a box is missing. It must have gotten put in the wrong pile when we moved and ended up at the DI. So, both of my nativity scenes and a bunch of other decorations are gone. I'm over it now though- It gives me the excuse to buy the willow tree nativity. I have wanted it for so long! I will just have to buy a few pieces every year though because it's a bit pricey! Up until last year, we had a tall, skinny tree with white lights and pinecones and I would decorate it all matchy and I wouldn't let the kids touch it because I wanted it to be perfect and I wanted the ornaments a certain way. Last year though, I thought about decorating the tree when I was little and remembered how colorful and fun it was and I decided that I wanted my kids to have that so I bought a tree with colorful lights, and let the kids pick out the colorful ornments, and I now let them decorate it themselves. It is messy. In some spots there are no ornments, while in others, there are clusters of them but I think it's absolutely perfect! I can have a matchy tree when I'm old and don't have any little kids- and then I will probably miss my messy tree!

I bought these trees to go outside on the front porch. They didn't last 5 minutes. The wind blows, and down they go. So, they are now inside trees.
The kids also have trees for their rooms and they get a few ornaments every year to add to their trees. This one is Gavin's Of course, Mackenzie and Avery's is pink!

I have been thinking a lot about Christmas and what it means and why it's such a magical time of year and was thinking about what my favorite parts of christmas are...I love all of the christmas lights, the parties, and the community events. As far as our family celebrations, I love doing pj's and blankets on christmas eve for the whole family, and I LOVE doing the stockings.. Out of all of the shopping that has to be done, doing the stockings is my favorite part. The best thing about Christmas though is Staying home on Christmas day- Staying in our pj's all day, playing games, eating good food, and just enjoying the day with my little family. On that day, nothing else matters! It's easy though to sometimes forget why we have Christmas so we have also made it a tradition to tell the nativity story on christmas eve before going to bed. This year, I am hoping the kids can be the ones to tell the story. Tomorrow is thanksgiving though and I do love thanksgiving too. I love spending that time with family, and I love to eat, so it's the perfect holiday! It's a good time to reflect and to think about all that we have and how truly lucky we are. Now I just hope the roads will be clear so that we are not stuck home! If we do get stuck here, my poor family may be eating pizza for Thanksgiving dinner!