Christmas Tree: Phase One

Well, we put up the Christmas tree on Friday and decorated it last night. Ethan didn't understand how to use the hooks, so his job was to hand ornaments to Brian. Alyssa was thrilled to decorate and she said, "How beautiful!" to just about every ornament I handed her. Marcus started crying halfway through, so I'm going to finish things up tonight after the kids go to bed. We were basically only able to put the balls and snowflakes on the tree. All of the cool ornaments are still in the box.

We made it through the whole decorating process without a single mishap. One ball was dropped, but it didn't break. Everyone was happy. No one got in trouble. When we were finished, we sat on the living room floor and had fudge, sugar cookies, and eggnog. Then I had the brilliant idea to take a picture of the kids in front of the tree. I should have just left the evening alone. Alyssa kept touching the ornaments. Brian or I would say, "Don't touch the ornaments," over and over again, explaining to her that if they fell and broke the tree wouldn't be pretty anymore, and that she needed to be the example to Ethan. It went like this: "Don't touch the ornaments...Don't touch the ornaments...Don't touch the ornaments..." until finally, Brian and I both yelled at the same time, "DON'T TOUCH THE ORNAMENTS!"

Needless to say, just before I was able to take a couple of pictures, a ball fell and cracked on the floor. One casualty. Oh well. By the way, Ethan put the pumpkin up. I think we'll leave it until after Thanksgiving. And he puts the headbands on by himself; his favorite is yellow.