Decorating Time

The Ornament Table

Alex sorting out the lights

Ella laying out the ornaments

Ella's favorite ornament

Sophie hanging window stickies

The final product

We've had our tree up since Friday. We didn't decorate it yet because we had a big family with little ones staying with us this weekend. We thought it would be better not to have all the decorations out and stuff on the tree. Five minutes after our guests walked out the door, the kids wanted to get out all the stuff and decorate the tree. There were 9 children in the house all weekend with marathon cooking and cleaning, so getting everything out and decorating seemed like a big hassel to me. My initial instinct was to tell them to wait, because I really couldn't be bothered with more stuff to do. John was also none to eager as he had been chopping wood and moving our monstrous wood pile for the past two days. He told the kids to give him some down time just sitting and he would go down to the garage and bring up all the stuff later. This all meant "no" to their ears. They were not having any of it. They said, "We'll get it", and sure enough, they did. They lugged all the decorations and lights up the stairs. They proceeded to get everything out of the boxes and laid it all out on the table. Alex worked on untangling the lights and figuring out which ones worked. John and I just sat back watching and enjoying their excitement. They LOVE opening up all the ornaments. Every year they get an ornament from my mom, John's mom, and John's sister. We mark their names and the date on all of them, so getting out the ornaments is a trip down Christmases past with everyone deciding which ornaments are their favorite, etc. It was so much fun! And to think we were going to make them wait. I am so in love with saying "yes". It's addictive.