O Christmas Tree

This week we put up our Christmas tree. We have a 6 ft pre-lit tree that's going on it's 5th Christmas, so we are having a little trouble with some of the lights. Next year, when we are in a house that is ours, we plan to buy a 7 1/2 ft pre-lit tree. Last year, we piled up some moving boxes around the bottom of the tree to keep Brady away since he was only crawling at that point. This year, Andy was setting it up and Brady was dancing around, yelling, "Wow!" He instantly wanted to touch it, which we anticipated. We initially thought we'd place the baby gate around it to keep the ornaments safe, but decided to try it out first to see if we could condition him not to touch. So far, we've only had to remind him a few times to look, and not touch.




Above is our wreath. Like the tree, it's also fake, but that's just fine with me because it will remain the same, year after year. My mom made it for me and I picked out all the small pieces to go into it. Something that's like this already put together in stores like Micheal's go for about $50 and it certainly didn't cost that much to make!




Our angel is the most important part of our tree. Growing up, we always topped our trees with a star, but when I met Andy I decided to do a something a little different. We call her our Betsy angel because that was Andy's mom's name and she was a redhead just like our angel (not a coincidence). Andy's mom passed away shortly before Christmas 17 years ago and having her be our angel reminds us that she's always watching over us.

This is the only ornament that Brady is really tempted to touch. Can't imagine why ;)

Our acquisition from our most recent trip to Disney. We go back this weekend and I can't wait to hit up the Christmas store in the Magic Kingdom.

These next few are some of my favorites. They are all hand-painted and imported from the Czech Republic. The store I bought these from no longer exists, so I would be devastated if anything ever happened to them.

We got this last year at Bronner's, the world's largest Christmas store, located in Frankenmuth, MI. We had them hand-paint the personalization. This is one of seven 1st Christmas ornaments we have for Brady.

We always get an ornament when we go on vacation, so below are a few of my favorites. I love the one above because it was from our honeymoon in Hawaii and says Merry Christmas in Hawaiian.

This one and the next one are also vacation ornaments, although not quite as obviously. They are from a small shop on Anna Maria Island, FL. These ornaments are actually made out of gar fish scales. Pretty cool.

No tree is complete without a pickle! First one to find it gets to be Santa.

This was a purchase at Walmart today. Brady loves anything Mickey and was more than excited to shake the bells all through the store.