Putting up the tree

I was trying to remember what we did when Trevor was Gwen's age for putting up the tree. The way I remember it, we put it up with the heavy and breakable ornaments on the tree higher than he could reach, and any ornaments that he wanted to play with, never ended up on the tree. Even last year, he had the Buzz/RC car, Thomas and Percy, Lightning McQueen and Mater, and all the Star Wars Vehicles off of the tree so he could play with them. I guess I didn't expect Gwen to want to play with a lot of the ornaments, but I guess I wasn't sure.

Trevor seemed to want to try to have more ornaments on the tree this year, although right from the beginning the Star Wars vehicles were found, and they ended up out of the box, but never on the tree. He told me he really wanted to find Lightning McQueen and Mater so he could play with them. We got the tree yesterday morning, and let it settle and warm up for the rest of the day. After dinner, we were going to try to watch a movie and put up the decorations, but Trevor didn't want to move. So Russ and I put the lights and the garland on the tree before the movie was done, and once the ornaments started coming out, then Trevor was game. We put on some music instead. I tried to work it out so that Gwen had some stringed ornaments that she could hang on the tree herself while I continued to unpack the ornaments.

It was amazing to see both of the kids' awe over the different ornaments. Once I started to help Gwen by hanging the ornaments where she asked me to, it became a huge game for her. She could have done it all day. We opened all of the ornaments that we had. Even ones that we had never used before. She kept looking for more.

Since that time, it seems as though she is trying to relive the event a little bit because any ornaments that are within her reach, she takes off of the tree to get them put back on by someone else. Although if she had her pick, she also likes to play with the ornaments we have that look like fruit.

So that's our Christmas preparation to date. Trevor was remarking that he was feeling like Christmas was really getting closer. The weather is probably helping that too. But I do agree...it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here!