Christmas Trees

Andrew took Miriam to a musical rehearsal on Sunday evening, so while I was home with the rest of the kids I pulled out our new little Christmas tree (another Buy Nothing Group score) and set it up in the basement. Rachel and I also lugged the parts for the big Christmas tree upstairs (but we didn't put it all together until Monday) because I wanted to get to a box of Christmas books that was behind the Christmas tree. 

Phoebe was so excited about the Christmas tree. Zoë taught her how to be a "present" under the tree. 

And then we just sat in the basement and read stories together. Here's Phoebe "reading" one of Shannon Hale's books:

Her little pigtails sure were cute when I put them in before church. By the evening they were still cute...but a little chaotic.

I also read the kids a number of stories from our box of Christmas books. 

On Monday when I put the pieces of the big Christmas tree together upstairs, Phoebe gasped, "Whoa! Big'un! Big'un Kissmas tee!"

We pulled out the decorations for FHE and trimmed the tree together. Here are Rachel and Miriam putting some beads on the tree:

And here's Phoebe putting her first ornament on the tree:

Here are all the kids posing with their baby picture ornaments:

My (second) cousin Mary (Kemp) posted about how the secret to having a perfectly balanced tree and a toddler is simply to have so many decorations that the whole tree is saturated. That way baby can put as many ornaments as they'd like wherever they'd like and nothing looks particularly out of place because the whole tree is just a little bit on the wild side.

Phoebe

I have to say that that is entirely in line with my tree decorating philosophy.

Alexander (and Benjamin)

I want the kids to put the ornaments they love on the tree. I want them to put them where they want them. It's chaotic. But it's beautiful. 

Zoë and Daddy

Alexander (and Rachel)

Now, I will admit that we did move a couple of big red balls off this branch. Phoebe wanted them all on that branch and it was a little too heavy.

She made a little shrine to herself, surrounding herself with red balls and a little Grogu that she found (I think it's one that Benjamin made a couple of years ago). She was very excited to put Grogu by Phoebe.

Benjamin similarly created a little shrine for himself.

He called it his "nerd corner" or something like that, and it featured StarWars, Indian Jones, and National Park stuff, and a scorpion, among other things.

Here's Phoebe putting some finishing touches on the tree:

When I announced that we were finished and started putting away all the containers the ornaments had been in, Phoebe ran up to me with a fistful of ornaments she'd snatched off the tree, singing the clean up song from Daniel Tiger: "Keen up, pit up, put away! Keen up! Evee day!"

"Actually," we explained to her. "We're going to keep the tree up all month, so we don't have to clean it up now. We'll clean it up after Christmas is over."

She didn't seem to think keeping a bedazzled pine tree in the living room was a completely sane-person thing to do, but so far she's allowed it. She certainly enjoyed looking at the ornaments (and touching the ornaments, even though that's technically a no-no) all day today!

Here are the kids with this year's tree (set to colourful lights; our tree can switch between white lights and colourful lights at the click of a button):