Oh Christmas Tree

After a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family and illness, we were ready to kick off the Christmas season healthy!  Sunday after we got home from our Thanksgiving weekend, we dug out the Christmas tree box (which was a much easier process this year with it not being buried under the stairs and behind the freezer at the old house).  We spent a little time on Sunday putting the tree together (we discussed the possibility of getting a real tree sometime in the future, but not this year).  

The girls posing for a Christmas tree assembly picture.

Claire was super excited about the tree!

While Anna looks less than thrilled, I had to share this picture, because she looks so grown up.  

We made Christmas tree set up and decorating a multi-day affair.  Once we had it assembled we took a break and had dinner with friends.  We decided to make Tuesday night our special decorating night.  We had egg nog and hot chocolate and a lot of fun!

Anna was in charge of the tree skirt.  

Hello under there!

Daddy was in charge of helping Claire stay in an upright position.  

Anna did the angel.  

And drank lots of hot cocoa!

Claire was in charge of being cute.  She succeeded.  

Anna was GREAT at putting on ornaments.  It was really fun for her to go through all of our ornaments and hear the stories that came with each one.  We have a very concentrated area of ornaments on our tree, but we like it that way!

Drooly!

Claire in front of her first Christmas tree.

Claire and Lola's first real meeting...Lola has never dared to get so close!

Our happy, dimpled girl.

This weekend we continued our Christmas preparedness plan with a visit to Santa.  

Claire wasn't sure what to think...but her lip only quivered once.  

Claire's first visit to Santa. 

What's that you say?  Where was Anna?  Oh, yeah, she wouldn't go near Santa. She wouldn't even get within 10 feet of the guy. Maybe next year.  

After our visit to Santa, we headed to church for the Advent celebration.  They had lots of Christmas crafts and activities for the little ones. 

Claire got to have her picture taken by the trees....Anna did too.  They made ornaments out of their pictures....we'll just say Anna's is interesting.  Stop by and visit our Christmas tree to check it out. Claire is also practicing for her debut as Baby Jesus in a few weeks.  And yes, Mommy and Daddy will be Mary and Joseph. 

Anna LOVED making the crafts.  

Here she is making a Christmas tree apron.  

And happily making her Christmas tree village, complete with frosting, candy and fun!

It was a beautiful masterpiece...

but we can say from experience, that this particular craft is not an easy one to transport back home....we did have a cone casualty and a breakdown, but that was followed by a very nice lady giving us two new cones and a scoop of frosting so we could rebuild our trees when we got home.  Poor Daddy, he was so sad.  

In other Christmas news, we had a strange visitor Saturday morning....and I think he's going to stay for a while.  

We came downstairs Saturday morning to find this....

After reading the book that came with this strange little visitor, we had to pick a name for our little elf.  The chosen name was Clyde.  So, Clyde the elf, not to be confused with Clyde the great-grandpa,  is visiting to make sure Anna and Claire are very good little girls and he'll be reporting back to Santa each night.  Apparently one of his favorite foods is mini marshmallows.  He made a bit of a mess.  

This morning we found Clyde on the table.  He had spelled his name out in letter tiles.  We think that means he likes the name Anna chose for him.  I think he wants to sit there to make sure that Anna uses her manners at the dinner table tonight.  

We'll have to see where he pops up next.....

We are well on our way to having a very merry Christmas season.  Hopefully we continue to stay healthy!