Christmas Prep

 We were pretty excited for Christmas in this household. In fact, just the day before the bearded man came to our home, Char excitedly said, "I'm so happy, I'm standing on one leg!" and then he did just that to prove it! Hot dog! As excited as we were for the big day of all days, we saved most of the merry making for after Jamesy finshed finals and after Aunt Valerina came to stay. After all, celebrating is much more fun when everyone is included! 

However, before all the big things happened, the boys and I enjoyed a morning in, setting up a faux fireplace to hang out stockings on. Since this house didn't come with one, Mason thought it was a must and I couldn't agree more! (I just wish that we had Lindsay's fake fire to go with it like we did back in our college days!)

The boys were more than proud of their hard work so they agreed for pictures to be taken in front of their masterpiece:

Even Coobie....who closes his little lashed-eyes tightly every time he poses for a picture:

 Picking out the Christmas Tree and putting up the lights:

The whole house was decorated after Thanksgiving, but we couldn't seem to schedule a time before finals to pick out a Christmas tree. When we finally did, it was December 19th and everywhere we went was sold out! (I guess Kansas isn't known for it's abundance of Christmas tree farms. Who knew?) At this point we started to worry. After all, a paper fireplace is one thing, but a paper tree just couldn't be! Mason had been eyeing all of his friend's lit trees all season long and had his little heart set on a grand tree to gather round! 

Thankfully, our beloved Menards had a few (and I really mean just a few) left. 

Char doesn't go anywhere without his trusty "cowboy" rope

The poor little tree was so dry that we had to soak it in water before we could even think about bringing it indoors:

While it rehydrated, James put up Christmas lights to prove that we weren't scrooges:

 Lucky for him, he had some helpers to ensure that the job was done right:

 Even though part of the lights refused to work, we were all very impressed:

After the lights were complete, James turned his attention back to our tree. After spending some time making sure that the bottom was even, he put it in our stand only to find that the darn tree's trunk was so curved, that when it was put in correctly, the top of the tree pointed out almost entirely sideways! In the end, he had to almost cut the tree in half to get it to sit straight. I guess there was a reason why our little tree was one of the rejects. We all got a good laugh. Even Mason eventually saw the humor in it, even though it was nowhere near as magical and grand as the fake trees that he had come to admire. 

Note the cool lights in the background. Not everyone can string lights in patterns. :)

Once our crispy nub of a tree came indoors, we did our best to make it beautiful:

 Why, even Ratty helped out:

 Once Mason realized that there was still fun to be had with an ugly tree, his heart was all the way softened

 Sweet Treats:

A couple days before Christmas, we decided to fill our kitchen with sweet treats to bring to our neighbors and friends. I even went out and bought cute little bags to deliver them in and everything! But in the end, only a couple bags were given out and we enjoyed most of the loot ourselves. Oink! Such a shame, because now almost nobody knows just how yummy they were!

 Cabey and Char helped me start up the carmel kisses we made. I say 'start' since it took five hundred years to get up to the soft ball stage(the darn recipe said to cook it on low) and everyone had long since lost any sort of interest in our treat. Don't worry, the pot was still cold when Coobie and Char were put in charge of stirring it.

Much more exciting were the spritzer cookies that Poppy headed up! Spritzer cookies are a family tradition on his side of the family and we have decided that no Christmas is complete without a little spritzer fun!

Even with all those activities keeping us busy, Christmas could not seem to come soon enough!