Festive Home

Despite the fact that we are, ahem, still living amongst a few boxes, things are looking a bit homier now that we have most of the Christmas decorations up. We got snow last week which I figured was my cue to get the outside Halloween decorations taken down. Then George asked me when we can start putting the Christmas stuff up. Since we are leaving for Florida on Dec. 20th, I figured we can decorate for the holidays a little earlier than we usually do. George, Nate and I got a head start on the outside lights on Sunday while Olivia was napping. This old house doesn't have any outlets outside so poor George was having to string this extension cord to that one and then connect another, etc... Somehow he managed to get everything lit up AND hooked to a timer. As we were hanging lights, Nate was stumbling around the yard in his new puffy winter coat. It's so puffy that Nate has a hard time moving his arms. Oftentimes, he'll fall down and not be able to get back up. So, he was stumbling around, falling in piles of leaves, looking as cute as ever. Things are looking like a winter wonderland out there. Now we just need more snow.

After Olivia woke up, we started decorating inside. George had already put up the tree so I only had to drag the ornament box up from the basement and get to decorating. She and Nate happily "helped" me. Olivia was busy handing me ornaments out of the bin, or running especially cute ones out into the living room for Daddy to see. Nate was just grabbing whatever he could out of the bin and flinging it around. He's gentle that way. Even though we only put ornaments on the top 1/3rd of the tree, it looks pretty in the corner of our dining room!


We found stockings, candles, my Gingerbread House, wreaths, and a lighted garland that we ran up the banister. All this has catapulted Olivia into major Santa mode. First, when she saw the snow last week, she asked, "Is Santa coming?" Now with the house decorated, she oscillates between running around on some sort of Santa induced high, and sitting quietly on the couch admiring things saying, "Oh, it's ador-bable." There's been a constant fight over who gets to wear the Santa hat and christmas tree bell necklace. There was a scuffle over a tiny snowglobe. It was dropped on the kitchen tile and broke which made Olivia cry. She said that Santa was going to be mad that she broke it. Every night we read, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" at bedtime and everything she sees on TV is on her Christmas list. I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year. I think it's the first year that she understands what's happening AND we're headed to Florida for the holidays. It will be so much fun to see her and Nate opening their presents and I'm thankful my parents will be able to enjoy that with us.