Christmas Confession

Our lights are up and they are a glow. Our tree is decorated. Tomorrow our normal nick nacks will be placed in boxes and put aside for our Christmas decor. Part of this is for necessity due to some scheduling that has made us accelerate our Christmas plans. But part of it is that we love Christmas. And not at the expense of thanksgiving. We love our thankful and grateful filled, Family fun, holiday. But I think we look at Thanksgiving and Christmas being two large markers in the overall holiday season. For us, the only difference is football for thanksgiving and presents for Christmas! The girls decorated a large portion of the tree themselves this year. It means some unusual but very personality driven placement of ornaments. Mac liked placing similar or like ornaments all together in a cluster. This means that our tree looks like a patchwork of clustered ornaments. We have a battle going on between our toy soldiers on one part, a snowstorm going on in another part, and lots of animals gathering together for another part. Keegan just liked finding cute and pretty ornaments. She was very interested in ornaments that were "hers" or that she had helped make. We will have to make more this year. I'm excited to try some new activities and carry on old traditions this year. Matt made his first batch of puppy chow with the girls which we think they thought was too sweet and they can help me make pie and coffee cake this week for thanksgiving day. I love these special times, it seems like doing things together and with others is so much easier during the holiday season. I'm very thankful for that!)