Let Christmas Begin

Since Thanksgiving has officially come and gone it is now time to start the Christmas season! Yesterday we continued a family tradition that I grew up and John and I have implemented of reading the Christmas story and setting up the nativity scene before setting up any other Christmas decorations. Peyton was very, very interested in the story and sat in her bouncer glued to John as he was reading. It was pretty funny!

Following the Christmas story, we then started to put up our tree which was an adventure to say the least. Last year we bought a pre-lit tree. Well, the middle section tree lights did not work which is now the second of three sections to go out. I got frustrated and John and my mom ended up going to her house to find some lights and after much 

annoyance we got lights on the tree and got it decorated. We will have to buy a new tree for next year but given our negative experience with pre-lit trees  think we will be going old school which might work out the best because I am sure Peyton would like multi-colored lights and a fun kid tree in a couple of years. Once we lit the tree Peyton was very impressed and looked briefly in wonder. Since then she has continued to look over in that direction. One of my 

favorite things this year was putting her ornament on the tree. Every year we buy an ornament that represents that past year. We have one for our first Christmas, places we were at Christmas that year, one for our wedding, our first house and for this year we had one for Peyton's first Christmas. Such a nice addition! We finished up the indoor decor last night as well and I truly love our house at Christmas. 

Today we put some lights outside. We scaled back from what we did last year but we added some candy canes that I picked up in Spring yesterday during a shopping trip with my mom and Ashley. I have yet to show Peyton those lights and when she wakes up we will venture outside. You can check out more pictures of Christmas decor here.