Chinese and Christmas 2016

This is, by far, one of my favorite traditions we've done over the past handful of years. I just love decorating for Christmas, and I love the ambiance when it's all done. I love how cozy the house feels when the decorations are up, and I love the thrill and excitement of it all.

We started this tradition back in 2013, when Cashel was inching up on 2 years, and Ryan was a 3 month old baby, and it is just the best :)

This was the first year the boys really got into decorating, and Kendrick is absolutely in awe of all the lights.

Cashel was all about hanging the ornaments. Kendrick was too, but he wasn't nearly as skilled at it, so most of the ones he hung fell down. That being said, I think they allowed me all of about 5 ornaments to hang, as they did ALL of the rest of them! (Thank goodness for shatterproof bulbs!)

Ryan really wanted to help out too, but he was a wee bit young for the job :)

Mark has never really been much of a decorator, so he usually leaves the job up to me. I caught him hanging one single ornament and had to snap a picture lol It usually looks more like the other picture: Kendrick hanging an ornament while Daddy watches TV and checks his phone. Mark doesn't really get big into the festivities of Christmas: His favorite part is seeing family we haven't seen much during the rest of the year. Fair enough, I guess - I don't get super excited about farming and racing and football either.

Kendrick has been COMPLETELY obsessed with Christmas lights this year. We put these little topiary trees (that used to go outside) in the big boys' rooms, so they can each have a Christmas tree as a night light, and Kendrick carries his all over the house. He wants it to be in any room he is in. He also takes the spare Christmas lights and plugs them in to whatever open outlet he can find. It's equally adorable and annoying haha :)

The second favorite part of this evening is that I don't cook, but we order take out Chinese, which is a favorite for everyone (aside from Ryan, who has a hard time finger-feeding himself rice, and he doesn't like to be fed these days). I always look forward to this, as we don't tend to get takeout overly often, so it's fun to eat out and yet stay home :)

Kendrick decided that he REALLY likes the deep fried chicken this time around and started hoarding them. So much for Mama getting her own sweet & sour chicken, huh?

After we ate, we popped in the Polar Express, and the boys were all enthralled. Granted, Cashel assured us before we put it in that he didn't like this movie at all, and that it was very scary, and he would never watch it. It took all of about 2 minutes for him to change his mind, even if he did still say that it was scary at some parts.

It is now Kendrick's favorite movie to watch on repeat as many times a day as we will allow. He'd be happy if we just left it on all day long ;)

The end to another wonderful day! This truly is one of my favorite days of the year :)

Christmas Decorating and Chinese (December 3)

We once again continued the tradition of trimming the tree and getting Chinese takeout for supper on Thursday evening. The boys were on cloud 9, as they've been asking for over a week now almost every single day when we are going to put the Christmas tree up. Kendrick calls Christmas trees "Christmas", which is really cute :) He's also significantly better than big brother at putting the ornaments on the tree (riddle me that one?)

The boys were quite a bit more owly than usual, so it made for a lot of sweet moments followed almost immediately by screaming and tears. We're thinking the earlier bedtime last night was MUCH-needed.

The tree looks significantly more barren this year than in previous years, but considering last year the boys broke two "unbreakable" ornaments we had gotten on some of our favorite trips, and Cashel has become significantly more interested in cutting things with scissors, we figured it'd be safer to just hold off a few more years on those, and work on crafting our own this year.

They boys weren't overly interested in the Chinese this year (we usually get beef & broccoli and crab rangoon), and it gave me mild heartburn, but tradition, right?

Usually the tradition also goes that we then snuggle up when it's all done and everything is decorated and watch the Polar Express, but Cashel already informed us multiple times in the past two weeks that The Polar Express is "super scary" and he "doesn't like it", so we went with Ice Age Christmas instead, which he loved!

After all was said and done, the boys donned their Christmas PJs and we tried to get a few pictures by the tree of them for the final page of the Grandparent photo books that I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever get ordered in time.

As I recall, Cashel had just slugged Kendrick and we yelled at him for it, so he was acting all innocent because he quite obviously did not "make the good choices", as he says these days.

Overall, it didn't really go super well, but randomly one turned out, and one is all you need!

And the tree is trimmed now (somewhat) and makes the house feel so festive!

Chinese and Christmas Decorating (November 18)

We decided to put up our Christmas tree and decorations a little early this year to have a little more time to really enjoy it. We had company coming for Thanksgiving this coming weekend, and I knew it would get a little crazy if we tried to wait until they arrived. And with Thanksgiving and Christmas being just 3 weeks apart this year, we wanted to enjoy our tree for a tinge longer than that.

I absolutely love this little tradition we started a couple years ago. LOVE! Here are a couple of our past years:
2012
2013

The tree really looks pretty much almost exactly the same, except for the part where we decided to switch to using ribbon instead of strings of beads on the tree this year. We discovered last year that with the beads, we are pretty limited, as Cashel can reach them pretty much anywhere now. Last year he broke 2 strands of them, and let me just say - picking up hundreds of beads from the floor is NOT fun.

We also decided that this year, we wouldn't be adding the breakable ornaments or special ornaments at all. (We still need to glue back together a couple of our most precious ornaments that we said, "There's no way he could break this one - it's solid" last year.) Even so, the tree still feels pretty full and warm this year. I've got to get out my handy dandy light fixer soon to tend to some of the patches that aren't twinkling properly, but beyond that, I'm just thrilled that the tree is up!

As usual, we got one beef and broccoli and one chicken and broccoli, although this year we splurged on crab rangoon as well. Also, as usual, I did pretty much all of the decorating while the boys settled in and watched The Polar Express for the first time this year.

It just feels a little magical in our house on this night each year.

Our halls are officially "decked" :)

Chinese and Christmas (November 22)

Last year we began a fun family tradition: ordering Chinese takeout to enjoy on the evening we decorate for Christmas, turning up the surround sound with some Christmas music, and settling in for a cozy evening together as a family.

I'll admit: I'm the decorator in our house. Mark really enjoys the cozy ambience of the tree and lights and all, but he just does not enjoy decorating whatsoever, so I do it. But this year, I had a little "helper".

Another tradition I started shortly after our first Christmas together in 2006 was to keep the Christmas cards from the previous year and leave them in our card hanging pouch to pull out again when we decorate the next year. Once we finished decorating and eating, we settled into the cozy living room, turned on The Polar Express, and I read through the previous year's cards. It's always so interesting to see how much you have all changed each year, and where your lives have taken you. I think this is definitely my favorite tradition, as it is such a reminder of how rich and full each of our lives are, and how grateful we are for our family and friends and seeing where the Lord has taken them.

Our tree this year :)