Christmas Decorating

For FHE on Monday, Nov. 30th, we decided to get out our Christmas decorations. I am glad that we did because the next day the flu hit our house and we have still not recovered. (Well actually by the time this posts, hopefully we will have. I am writing this on Saturday since I am so behind and we are all still sick today.)

Jeff always takes care of assembling the tree and putting on the lights. He does such a thorough job too by making sure there is lots of depth and everything is even!

Aubrey enjoyed playing with the ornaments I was unpacking while we waited.

Brooke loved the plush Santa


Here is Aubrey patiently waiting to be able to put the ornaments on the tree. She kept asking if it was time to put on the ornaments every few minutes. I love how excited she gets about everything! I wonder where she gets that from. (ok it's me - I can hardly sleep whenever we have something fun planned.)

Aubrey asked if she could put on the star. Probably because her favorite movie is "My Little Pony, Twinkle Wish Adventure." In the movie the winner of an ornament making contest gets to place Twinkle Wish on top of the tree. When I told her we were going to decorate our Christmas tree, her first response was, "Are we going to put a star on the top?" What a little cutie pants.

The minute Jeff stepped away from the lighted tree, Aubrey was at it decorating. She didn't need a single instruction or help. She knew exactly what to do. I'm not sure how either.

Brookie had to join in on the decorating fun as well. She sure liked the shiny red and gold balls.

Brooke admiring the star. Yes she looks a little droopy. Her flu hit on Monday.

Aubrey was right on task until every single ornament had been hung. She asks everyday if she can hang more ornaments. We've done a little redecorating to appease her.

Aubrey with her handiwork. Look at how many ornaments she got on the bottom of the tree.

My 2 cuties under the tree. How could I ask for anything better to be under my tree?!

Brooke was happy to get close enough to the tree to explore. She would have been very happy to dismantle the whole thing piece by piece.

I had to get a close up of Aubrey's decorating. This branch had like 5 ornaments on it. It made me smile so much every time I saw her clumps of ornaments. I'm actually a little sad that I redecorated after she went to sleep. I miss seeing all those ornaments on the bottom of the tree.

After we decorated the tree we watched a movie about the birth of the Savior as we ate dessert. I also had Aubrey put out her plastic Nativity. It was a fun FHE. And I am so glad that we got most of the decorating done that night.

After Aubrey went to bed I rearranged her Nativity and put out a few others, that are kid friendly, down low where she could see them. When she woke up the next morning she went straight to the nativities. She said to me, "Mom you did it wrong." She then went about fixing them. When I came back a bit later this is what I saw:

She had taken all of the figures on the 2 sets and had them facing baby Jesus. In this second one you can see that she even took the little lamb and faced it towards Jesus. It was really sweet that she knew why they were all there.

After she fixed the nativities she asked me, "Can we watch that baby Jesus show again?" So we watched it twice. I am so happy that she is so interested in the reason why we celebrate Christmas!

I love all aspects of Christmas; the religious, the fun, the magical, the sights and smells. I think they all work hand in hand to create a giving, fun and magical season. I wouldn't want to take a single piece of it away. The Santa part is easy to get excited over since he is everywhere. So I am trying to make an effort everyday to talk about baby Jesus as well. It has helped that Grandma Buell sent a really cute magnet advent. Each day there is a piece of the nativity that you add to the scene. Ending with baby Jesus of course. We've had fun talking about all of the parts as we have added them to the scene everyday.

I am hoping that the flu will have flown soon, so we can get back to more Christmas fun!