Fields of Green: Oh Christmas Tree

It may be 2012, but as far as I'm concerned, it's Christmas until I take our tree down. And so help me, I'm not taking down for at least a few more days. Those ornaments make me happy, so that tree stays where it is until I'm good and ready to say goodbye, dagnabbit!

I'm sort of like reverse-Scrooge. Yayhumbug!

I just imported 1111 (yup, exactly) holiday photos into my iphoto. You know what? The holidays were good this year. So very, very good.

We wanted to chop down our own tree again this year, but time just didn't allow. So, we caved and drove up the road to the tree sale at a local church. It turned out to be a total score, because not only did we get a beautiful tree for a great price, some dear friends of ours were there to help us pick it out and tie it down. I call that a win-win!

Such a cutie!

My fail-safe system to keep baby out of tree.

I thought for sure I could keep her out of the tree, but she just figured out how to climb up on the couch and reach from there, so the right side of our tree has been bare for weeks. In fact, just tonight (nearly a month post-tree) we walked back into the living room to find this:

Kid's got a stash. I think she thinks she's hiding them behind the pillow.

Anyway, I didn't think Sweet Pea would really take much notice of our tree trimming, but I was completely wrong. She loved it. Girlfriend thought the ornament bin was a miraculous toy box, and she thought digging through it was the most fun ever. She would find a "ball," walk it over to the tree, shove it in the branches, then clap all excitedly. I was so happy I think I cried like 8 times. Add to the fact that she'd just started walking for real, and it made for one adorable night. Going between the box and tree was great incentive for her to practice walking, and that was the night that she really got it down for good. I can't believe that now, only three weeks later, she's completely done with crawling and is even running.

"No no no!!"

"Noooooo....."

We have a tradition of homemade pizza while decorating the tree. Pizza, or "Pi-ZHA!" as she calls it, is Sweet Pea's current favorite food.

She loved the ornament box so much she wanted to live in it.

Honestly, that night will go down as one of the sweetest in my memory. The family time, the sweetness of a little one, the actual pitter-patter of her sweet baby feet...my heart swells just thinking about it.

Sorry for the video quality. I'm a photographer, and clearly not a videographer. And why on earth won't the video turn?