The Spirit of Christmas

It took me awhile to get into the Christmas spirit.  We had our tree up with lights on it for five days, and I couldn't muster enough energy or excitement to decorate our house or put the ornaments on the tree.  Maybe subconsciously I was thinking that a Christmas tree and a two-year old don't mix.  I'm not sure.  In any event, I finally decided last Friday evening that we were going to decorate that darn tree!  It didn't take long for me to be in Christmas overdrive. Brody was absolutely thrilled to hang ornaments on the tree and watch them sparkle and twirl. We let him take over the bottom half with unbreakable things or those that we didn't mind if he did break.  The top half is covered with our usual very breakable glass ornaments, passed down from Brad's family.  Although it might look a little different than in year's past, it's our tree and it's beautiful!  Brody looked at some of the ornaments yesterday and said, "It's so magic, Mommy."  I am in love!

After the tree decorating, we went Christmas crazy.  I decorated the rest of the house like a fiend.  We spent all Saturday afternoon baking Christmas cookies.  We went to a cookie exchange party on Sunday.  We've watched Shrek the Halls, Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, The Happy Elf, and can't wait for more of the old classics to be on TV.  We've read The Night Before Christmas, Little Tree, Away in a Manger, and all the Jan Brett holiday stories countless times.  I play Christmas music constantly and Brody now knows all the words to Jingle Bells and Up on the Housetop.  He requests the Christmas station in the car and I happily oblige.  We went to the library and checked out Christmas books and CD's because you can just never have enough this time of year.  We have been doing our shopping this week and are almost finished. We can't wait for Christmas!!