And so the Christmas season begins...

 Saturday afternoon, we took Leon to go see his daddy at the mall and they went down the hall to see the big guy himself!  For the second straight year in a row, Leon would NOT sit on Santa's lap.  But the photographer was awesome and got him to at least smile for the camera.  Can't have people thinking this Santa smells like beef and cheese...  (stolen line from the movie Elf... if you didn't know!)

Then while I did a little shopping, Meri hung out with a friend and Maddy & Leon ate candy out in the hall.  

When we got home, the girls attacked the Gingerbread house I'd picked up at Aldi's on the cheap.  Probably was priced right since the frosting would NOT hold the thing together!   But they had a great time trying to make it work.

But then the wall would fall down.  Or roof would slide off...

You'd think it was made of straw!  Then all of the sudden, there was a pile of gingerbread and leftover frosting...

 

Leon took an interest when everyone else got bored with it and you'd think he was designing a three level home!  But he was just sticking on more candy.  and yes, I did remove the scissors from that area when I found it.

 While the girls did that, I put the tree up.  Swore over several branches that were not lighting up... even when I replaced a ton of fuses!  I think this might be the last year on this tree.  I had to put a few extra strands of lights on just so it wouldn't look so patchy.  The very top that makes it 12 feet tall isn't even on yet.  We need the ladder for that and haven't felt like dragging it into the house yet.  I'm getting old...  these bones don't move like they used to!  Time to look up the after Christmas sales on prelit trees...

On Sunday afternoon, the kids decorated.  The tree looks awesome with a LOT of ornaments toward the bottom that are not breakable.  For the upper areas, Maddy and I threw some up there.  Without a ladder, you can't do much more!  

 

Leon thought that was the new way to do it too, until we stopped him and then stopped ourselves.  Sometimes I can be a bad influence.

Leon and I put up a Christmas tree on the front porch that we found on Freecycle.org last summer.  We put on the lights, decor and tinsel.  Yep, THESE are breakable as Meri can contest to after stepping on a fragment in the kitchen that Leon broke.  And the antique colored lights that came with it are too.  A few blew up when I plugged them in and the rest heated up something fierce...  They might be pretty, but they're a fire hazard, so I threw them out.

 

The weather was decent that afternoon so after we got done with the tree, Leon was loathe to come back inside.  He made some toddler memories of his own and just sat out there with his tree.

 

And in looking at this photo, I see a Thanksgiving pumpkin that needs to be put away...  

My goal was to make the house as Christmassy as possible so when Maddy left, she'd have a warm and fuzzy Christmassy feeling for the drive back to college and remember us with Christmassy love.  She still left. 

 We get to see her next weekend when we attend her Christmas choir concert!  I'm working on a couple gifts that she and I forgot to sew this weekend with everything else going on.  She'll need them up there.  

And a shout out THANK YOU to Sonya!!!  What a sweetheart!  She sent out Christmas cards and remembered us AND Leon got a card all his own that plays music and lights up...  Thank you!

But dang... Back to work...  Have a great day!