Year End Wrap Up - Part Quatre: Decorating for Christmas

After the last post, I am sure that inquiring minds want to know what Jim did with his nights while Clay and I were in New Mexico.  Well, my wonderful hubby used his "free time" to put up our Christmas tree, take the ornaments out of the attic, and put the Christmas lights on our house!  In the words of one of my favorite 80s songs "Let's hear it for the boy, let's give the boy a hand, let's hear it for my baby..."  Bottom line, hooray for Jim!

Because of that, we were able to relax when we got back into town on Sunday evening and then got to leisurely decorate the house on Monday (Jim took the day off so that we could do this).  Let me tell you, decorating for Christmas with a baby was both fun and different!

First difference, we left our glass ball ornaments in the attic and bought shatterproof ornaments (I heard a scary story from a doctor about seeing kids every year who crawled over to the tree and took a bite out of an ornament - it kind of freaked me out).  Second difference, we (Jim) wired our tree to two of our walls so that it couldn't tip.  Third difference, Clay is here so it was SOOOOOOO much more special!

Clay played while we decorated the tree; this was his first glimpse of our Christmas tree.

We read The Elf on the Shelf every night and each morning we found our elf in a different place in the house.  I don't know that I got a picture of it, but our elf found himself in precarious situations (hanging from a chandelier or sitting on top of a [stuffed] lion).  Such a fun tradition!

Little man looking so cute underneath the decorated tree.  It's fun seeing these pictures now because he'd grown so much over Thanksgiving but now (6 weeks later) he looks so small in those pictures!

More cuteness!

Putting a very fitting ornament on the tree with Grand Bop (a converse shoe).  Grand Bop's footwear of choice is a pair of Converse All-Stars, in fact, he switched into a pair (at my request) for my wedding!

Clay LOVED these glitter ornaments.  If he was able to crawl into the living room, he crawled for a ball, if he was in a Johnny Jump Up, he'd "walk" to a ball, and if he was by the tree at all he was by one of these balls!