Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

One of my absolutely favorite times of the year is the Christmas season, for many reasons!

This is also our first year incorporating "Advent" into our family tradition. We have been reading "Mary's Little Donkey and the Flight to Egypt", by Gunhild Sehlin. We also found the Advent calendar that goes along with this book. So far it's been a great! I didn't get a chance to light the candles everynight along the second week, but I did pick it back up the beginning of the 3rd. I've been really enjoying reading about all the different ways people celebrate and the different traditions out here in blog world. I've learned quite a bit, especially in regards to the "old world" traditions in relation to what a lot of the waldorf family's celebrate. Some great stuff that I really look forward to in the years to come, especially as the little one's get older and can enjoy it more!

This past week we decorated the house...

I absolutely love decorating for Christmas! It's really so much fun :D This year I decided to do something a little different. We did most of our home's decorating first, including lights the day after Thanksgiving. Then last weekend Papa prepped the tree's. By the end of the day he and Ladybug were so tired that they had actually fallen asleep a bit early. Baby Bear also had fallen asleep promptly at his 7 o'clock bedtime as well. Then about 8:30 p.m. , I woke him up to help Mama decorate the tree's. I put on some Christmas tunes, made us both some warm milk with honey, and we had ourselves a great time. We really needed some time together alone and it was so nice! He kept getting so excited to help mama!

"Mama, I so excited!!", he kept saying as he'd open and close his little hands, just waiting for me to give him the next ornament to hang. It was really soooo cute!!

"Me too Son!", I'd reply in the most honest and sincerest way, because really...I was also very excited to decorate as I usually am!

It really was great and much needed bonding time for the both of us. When Papa awoke, we showed him the tree's with excitement! We actually both held hands and ran down the hall to Mama and Dada's room to wake him up and show him what we had done!

I usually have a few tree's around the house. One being my favorite "Kid's Tree". I'm not sure why I started calling this the "Kid's Tree", because I started this way before we actually starting having children. In fact, it's so cute that I think if I were a kid, it would just be a big tease because everything is really not supposed to be played with-lol! This year I actually placed the items that could handle some tiny hands on the bottom of the tree..."just in case".

This particular one has a lot of vintage ornaments, which were and continue to be so much fun to collect by scouring many an antique store and antique malls during the Christmas season...I so love it! As many of you know, I love antique's and vintage items so much, that I use to be an antiques dealer in my pre-mama days. So being able to still go and enjoy two of my favorite things with my family is so awesome! I've also found some other fun newer ornaments throughout the years to add to this tree as well. I've found some glass rubber duckies that really add something special to it. I've also collected glass mushrooms, which look great with all my Christmas "Pixies".

Here's our big tree! This one is so much fun to decorate. Every year we add amother decoration to commemorate the year. Be it the 1st year Papa and I started dating, our honeymoon, all the way to the Christmas I was pregnant with our first, to both our little one's first Christmas each! It's so nice to pull out the memories to share during our holiday season!