Decorating for Christmas

We had some free time this weekend, so we decided to go ahead and decorate for Christmas. Last year at an after-Christmas sale, we snagged enough outdoor lights to decorate our front hedges. We had forgotten about them until we opened up the boxes of decorations this year, so we're excited to have the hedges and doorway lit up!

We also put up the Christmas tree, and the kids had a great time helping with the ornaments. Dylan really likes the beaded garland on the tree; he has tried to pull on it a few times, but he hasn't pulled it off and stops quickly when we talk to him about it being "pretty decoration." When we were hanging the ornaments on the trees, Lily really enjoyed opening the boxes to see each ornament. She wanted to hang the majority of the ornaments all in the same spot on the tree. Dylan had lots of fun putting the small ornament boxes back into the bigger storage boxes after we closed them back up. He was so cute about it - he knew he was helping. Toward the end of the tree decorating, Dylan picked up on the idea of actually decorating the tree. He would take the ornaments over to the tree and set them gently on the lower branches, then clap his hands. Sometimes the ornament would sit there for a few moments, and other times it would fall to the floor right away, but Dylan was still proud of himself. There are only a few ornaments near the bottom of the tree where Dylan can reach them. The top two-thirds of the tree branches are thickly decorated with ornaments, in hopes of all of them surviving the kids' curiosity this season!

This year we set up the nativity scene on the console table where Lily can reach the pieces and move them around. She has already put Baby Jesus inside the barn and rearranged the wise men, Mary, and Joseph lots of times... The only things left to prepare are hanging the advent calendar and Christmas countdown candy ribbon before the 1st of December. I LOVE Christmas!

Here are a few pictures from the decorating process - I'll post some 'finished product' pictures probably in a few days. At the end, there's one of the kids climbing on Daddy. They all have so much fun playing together.