A Christmas Story

O' Christmas tree, O' Christmas tree. Notice this particular Christmas tree. Notice the decorations. Notice those magical, blue orbs of loveliness. The glittery, twisting ribbon snaking itself around evergreen boughs. Our fluffy, little tree garnished top to bottom with miss-matched trinkets of Christmases past. 

Well, maybe a little more on top and a little less on bottom. You see, a beautiful, little, angelic, 1 year old elf resides in our cozy gingerbread house.

  

What a magical time of the year it is in this little gingerbread house.

We have a rambunctious 3 year old.

A 3 year old who, despite it being December 20th, dresses in her witch costume or Ninja Turtle costume (depending on the hour of which the game is played), grabs her green Christmas stocking, and proceeds to knock on every door in the entire house, screaming trick or treat, all the while holding said stocking open wide for me to put something in it and tell her, her costume is great and have a Happy Halloween. She calls this game "Trick or Treat Vampire." She's definitely my girl. We love Halloween all year round! 

 

We also have an equally if not slightly more so rambunctious 1 year old.

A 1 year old who loves to pull the ornaments off the tree and suck on them for a minute and then throw them around the room. Hence, no ornaments on the bottom of our big tree because she has them strategically stashed around the house. She also really enjoys carrying around the pieces of the Nativity. Unfortunately, her grip seems to always fail her, not when she is walking over the soft, squishy carpet but when she is running on the nice, hard wood floor.  Luckily it's just that Little People Nativity because who would be crazy enough to display a porcelain Nativity in reach of cute, little, sticky fingers?

Joseph, a shepherd, a wise man and Baby Jesus are all holding on strong. Now I'd like to say that the 1 year old isn't the only one dropping these poor little figurines, but it just so happens that the hunky man of the house, just this very night dropped the angel that Everly had been packing around for hours without an "off with their head" dropping episode. It went from safe and sound in her sticky, little fingers to headless angel in Chris's. Nothing a little super glue can't fix.

 

It really is a magical time a year. 

We are trying to teach the girls, in between Santas, lights, and candy, the real reason we celebrate Christmas. He is the gift! (Clearly, with that set up, I should be showing the video the LDS church put out that is in fact called "He is the Gift"  (click the link. It's a good one!) But I'm posting this one. It's just so darn cute!)