Christmas Tree Day, Plus A Month

Because I wasn't blogging I didn't get to document my favorite day of the year, Christmas Tree Day! When I say it's my favorite day I think that it is even better than Christmas Day. It's the start of the entire season, it's the transition from regular boring house to festive fun house. Well, not fun house in the carnival way, though then again given the surprise and unwanted visitors it does make the holiday feel a little big top show sort of a way. However Christmas Tree Day is before any of that happens, there haven't been shopping, there hasn't been any holiday drama, it's just the potential of a good holiday season,

We have some pretty standard traditions when it comes to Christmas Tree day, and Sal has started to build some for herself. One of the most important being the "silly snowman" at the place we get our tree from. When we told her that Christmas Tree day was coming up she got very excited and exclaimed "We get to see the silly snowman!" And when I say exclaim I mean that she literally exclaims it with this airy breathless joy and excitement. She loves the silly snow man, and I love that she has started to come up with some things that she can look forward to about Christmas Tree day. My only fear is if something happens to that snowman she's going to be so disappointed. But so far we have I believe we have a picture with that snowman every year (maybe not the first year, not sure, I'll need to check that out).

Once we get home we begin the process of decorating the house. We start with getting the foyer set up with our Christmas rug, garland, and lights. We also have to move some furniture so the first part is not as exciting. We also start out with some delicious food. It's usually something like crepes, cinnamon rolls, though I think adding in the Zingerman's Obama Buns would be a great add to the rotation. We also get some delicious hot chocolate and get the tree up and start to decorate. We also have our traditional movies that we watch during the whole process, starting with Mickey's Christmas Carol, which is by far the best Christmas Carol movie. It's also super kid friendly, though we stared watching it well before there were children involved.

Sal has really changed a lot from last year, and she's been far more into Christmas this year than she ever has in the past. She was super excited for Christmas Tree Day. Once we got the tree she was very in to being part of the decorating, and kept asking when she'd get to help since she really couldn't do much while we were putting up the lights and ribbon. This year she was also really excited for Christmas Eve, and that Santa was coming and even more so when she woke up and found that the cookies were eaten.

This year we started something that may be a new tradition, because the day before Christmas Tree Day we took Sal up to Bronners and let her pick out a new ornament for the tree.  We took her last year at some point before the season and let her pick out an ornament, and that was fun so it was nice to let her do it again. She really loved looking at all the stuff, so it was a really nice and fun experience, so perhaps we'll make it part of the traditions for Christas. Of course the ornament that she picked up was another dinosaur that can go with her one she got last year. Though last year was more festive because it was wearing a Santa hat. We also picked up some new ornaments that look like old ones, as you will be able to see below in some of the extra pictures.

It was a good season, and it was a good Christmas Tree day to start it off. Below are some more photos that I wasn't able to fit in the usual format, so enjoy them in this less inline style format.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 74

Right before Christmas Tree Day we took Sal up to Bronners so that she could pick out a new ornament for the tree.  She of course picked a new dinosaur, however while we are shopping something caught my eye.  Why would anyone want to take these shrimp cocktail finger looking horror ornaments and put them on their tree?  I swear these are the things that jumped out of dinner and pulled people into their soup on Beetlejuice.