Our Christmas Tree

Since Thanksgiving we have been pretty busy.  Garreth has had an audit at work and has been getting home late every night.  Since it gets dark around four and it rains nearly every day now,a few weeks ago, the kids and I decided to grab the first chance we got to go cut down our tree.  I was sad that Garreth couldn't make it, but we had to use the small window we had where it was light outside and dry.   We picked a great tree, though not as fat and bushy as Grace would have liked!  (What can I say?  I love a skinny tree!)

Post- trimming.  

I know lots of people love having a fancy tree with matching ornaments, but I am not one of them.  I love our hodge podge collection of kids' homemade ornaments and ones we've picked up in our travels over the years.  It's fun to pull out ornaments we bought on fun trips and remember where we were and stories of what happened there.   I love our rastafarian Santa from the Bahamas, the leprechaun elf (and three others!) from Ireland, and our pink flying pig from Cincinnati, among many others.  You might notice our tree to be slightly top-heavy, since I am pretty protective of my collection!  I don't care that we have to replace the round ball ones every year, but don't mess with Texas.  (My Texas ornament, that is!)

All aglow.  

I love how family traditions seem to just create themselves.  For example, I still laugh every year when Garreth places our angel snowman on the top of the tree and says, "Okay, Mr. Snowman, this will only hurt for a minute."

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...."

Every year after decorating, we always have a cup of hot chocolate...

... and read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by the tree.

And now, to get myself totally caught up on my blogging, I leave you with a random, rare, tender, brother moment... Liam reading a Christmas book to his brothers.

I love catching them in moments like this, even if one of them does have his pants down.