Decking The Halls

We were home for Thanksgiving this year so I was able to start decorating over the weekend.  Friday morning we pulled out the Christmas boxes.  Emily was so excited to decorate for Christmas.  For weeks she kept asking when we could get out her Christmas books and I kept telling her "the day after Thanksgiving".  Well,  she was ready and so the book box was the first we opened.  She spent lots of time arranging her books on her shelf.  Next, we put up her little tree for her room and decorated it along with her other decorations.  She was so happy!

Emily really was such a big help this year.  She helped me unpack all the boxes and arrange the manger scene.  I have each box labeled by room and she was so excited that most of our rooms have their own special decorations.  We had a lot of decorating to do inside and out and so we had to finish things up on Saturday.  She helped decorate all of our trees.  This is the first time she has had the patience or interest to stay and decorate the whole time.  Here she is decorating our little tree that goes in our front room.

Here is the tree all decorated.

My mother had a Santa collection and now I have it and I really enjoy unpacking them and displaying them each year.  One of these Santa's belonged to Jeffs grandmother.  We almost don't have enough room for them all.

Saturday afternoon we headed to a Christmas tree farm about 30 minutes from us.  It was a neat little place.  This is the first year we didn't just go to a regular Christmas tree lot.  They grow lots of different kinds of trees on their local farm that you can cut fresh. They also have a farm in the mountains where they grow Frasier Furs and they pre-cut them and bring them to their local farm.

 

We wanted a Frasier Fur so we didn't cut our own but we took a hay ride to tour the farm.

As we left for the hay ride Frosty was being blown up and when we returned he was up to size.  He was big.  Here is Emily in front of him.  His belt buckle is bigger than her.

Here are Jeff and Emily with Frosty.

Next it was Emily's mission to find the "perfect Christmas tree".

Emily found the perfect tree and begged us to buy it.  It was a beautiful tree so we did.  I think it is really cool that Emily picked out our tree all by herself this year.  Here she is standing in front of our tree.  Look how proud she is.

Jeff bought her some cookies to take home which made her very happy.  They also had free apple cider and coffee.  Here are some signs by the check out area.  I thought they were cute.

We had a lot of fun at the tree farm.

After dinner Emily helped Jeff with the lights.

Then it was time to decorate.  As Jeff was finishing the lights she kept trying to put toys on the tree to decorate it.  Finally, she decided to help with the actual tree decorations.  She kept saying "I think our tree is nearly complete".

 

Now our tree is complete!

It looks good and smells great!  It is a great feeling to start the week off already decorated:)