Christmas Decorating

On my birthday a few weekends ago now I started decorating the house. I put on Christmas movies and got all the boxes out. I got pretty much everything done and put up except for the Christmas tree ornaments because I wanted to do that with the whole family and not by myself, call me sappy.

So this weekend we all finally had enough time to decorate the tree. First we all headed over to the Hallmark store to pick out Jack's first ornament! We got one for our first married Christmas together so we had to get one for his first Christmas too. And I really wanted to pick it out together, Max indulged me and we picked out the cutest Whinne the Pooh ornament. We also needed to pick out a stocking for Jack so we walked over to Target to see what they had. Well they didn't have anything we wanted so that was a bust. But we walked around and enjoyed the time out of the house. I thought maybe we could do some stocking stuffer shopping for Jack but Max couldn't possibly do that with Jack around! I don't think he would have noticed but I guess it's the principal of the thing :). So we just a did a quick lap around the store to see if we needed anything and headed home.

Max was home for one of the first weekends in a long time and Jack was in a GREAT mood, what a Christmas Miracle. So even though football was on instead a Christmas movie we still had fun decorating. Jack "helped" me put his ornament on the tree and enjoyed looking at all the lights.

He wasn't quite sure about it encroaching on his jumparoo space though... :)

Max even helped with a few and picked out some spots for me to place things; for a guy who hates decorating more than anything this was big and it was really nice to do as a family. *Sappy mom alert*

The other thing I really wanted to start this year was an Advent Calendar tradition. My parents had this big book that folded out with doors on it. We would open one each morning to count down to Christmas. It was one of my favorite things. But over time the doors got less and less sturdy, they started to fall apart and wouldn't stay open or shut and it became more of a hassle than fun. So I wanted one that would be different and that would stand the test of time (hopefully). I searched all over the internet and couldn't find one that I liked so I made one!

Yes I'm that person :). A post on how to make this calendar to come! But I think it turned out perfect! It's simple but that makes it great for kids. In years to come they can each have their own trinket to move around the numbers, they can decorate around each number, we can hang it however we want, so many possibilities! I think it will be so much fun. Right now we are just watching Santa get closer and closer.

I hope your decorating went just as well! Feel free to post your wonderful decorations in the comments or link to your site. I would love to see them and maybe glean some inspiration ;)