Annual Christmas Tree Lighting

Decorating for the holidays with a two and a half year old and a seven month old is...well...challenging.  I have to make sure I put things up high enough so that the baby can't reach it.  I have to put stuff in every room to please the toddler.  And I have to make sure that no matter what - NOTHING is breakable.  So as you can imagine, my Christmas décor is slowly morphing and evolving from something you might find in the pages of a Pottery Barn catalogue into a much more kid-friendly look.  And you know what?  I love it!  (FYI - Twenty-something Kelly would die if she knew I would one day be saying that...but it's true!!)

And one of my absolute favorite little traditions we have created is the annual lighting of Hayes (and now Hadley's) Christmas tree.  It is one of the very first things we set up in the house, and the whole family gets involved in the decorating.  The adults help a little bit with the tree skirt and some of the trickier things, but other than that - we let the littles do it all themselves.  This year Hayes was really into the hang-every-single-candy-cane-on-one-limb look while Hadley was digging the shove-everything-I-can-into-my-mouth style.  Definitely not what Cody or I would have done...but it turned out absolutely perfect!  Don't you think?