Toddlers and Christmas Trees

We always get a real tree for Christmas.  We live in Oregon.  It seems like a must.  Actually, we hadn't even gotten a tree for the last 4 years.  Last year, because Ayden and Rylee were pulling up on everything and at the beginning stages of walking.  The year before that because I was very, very pregnant with twins and we ended up spending Christmas in the hospital.  The two years prior to that, well, we didn't get a tree because we got super lazy.  It was just us.  We didn't have kids around, so it kind of just seemed like a waste of time.

This year, we had to get a tree though!  Now we have kids!  We have memories to make! Tony always insists on waiting until two weeks before Christmas to get our tree because of the fire hazard.  He was all "if you want to get a tree sooner, we can, but we'll have to get another one once the first one dies."  Yeah, right.  Like we're going to decorate the first one, undecorate it, and then start all over.  Not gonna happen buddy.  He knew that would be my answer and was just being sarcastic.    We've also talked about getting a fake tree, but then we would miss out on the experience of searching for our perfect tree and cutting it down.  I agreed to wait, but really, really thought we could have gotten our tree at least the weekend before.  I told him next year we HAVE to get it 3 weeks out from Christmas and we will just take it down right after.  It's hard to wait when everyone (it feels like everyone) else has had their trees up since the day after Thanksgiving!  I love Christmas.  I love the excitement of all the lights, Santa Claus, Elf on the Shelf, and all that good stuff.  Even though in the few years prior to having kids, we lost all the excitement for whatever reason.  As I said, I think we just got lazy.  I wanted to share all the fun with Ayden and Rylee!

So, Saturday was our tree hunting day!  Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain and really windy, but we survived!  I would have loved to get pictures of the experience, but due to the weather, I opted to leave my phone in the car.  We put Ayden and Rylee's amazing Tuffo Muddybuddy rain suits on, and off we went.  They enjoyed wandering around exploring, but really had no clue what the fuss was all about for picking out a tree.  After cutting down our tree and while Daddy tied it to the top of our car, Ayden and Rylee enjoyed their very first candycane while staying under cover.  I did get a picture of them then!

Watching Daddy tie the tree to the car

Saturday night after Ayden and Rylee went to bed, Tony and I got the tree set up in the house, and put the lights and ribbon on the tree so it would be ready to decorate in the morning.  I went through all our Christmas ornaments and separated them into two bins.  One bin contained all the valuable, breakable ornaments that would not be making an appearance this year, and the other bin contained all the ornaments I deemed safe for Ayden and Rylee.

Before getting the kiddos out of bed Sunday morning, I made sure to turn the lights on the tree so they would get that magical first look!  They've already seen a few Christmas trees with decorations at other places, but THIS tree was in OUR house!

Rylee's first look at the tree.  Notice the ribbon?

It took Ayden all of 10 seconds to take the ribbon off the bottom of the tree and try to unplug the lights.

He had a grand ole time with the ribbon.

Ayden and Rylee were very excited when I brought out the box of decorations.  They were fascinated by all the new "toys!"  They really didn't understand the concept of decorating the tree, but they REALLY enjoyed UNdecorating it all the live long day.

Checking out the goods.

She sometimes put an ornament on the tree, but mostly loved taking them off.

His version of "helping" decorate: take ALL ornaments off as quickly as possible!

By the end of the day, Tony was ready to throw the tree in the garage.  He was very happy that he didn't have to be on very much tree duty over the next two weeks, because he gets to go to work.  lol!  Both strands of ribbon have been removed.  The tree almost toppled over onto the hooligans trying to get the top ribbon off.  It actually would have fallen on them if I wasn't right there to catch it.  Sigh.  They have attempted to pull the lights off several times and are now just thrown back on randomly instead of being well placed.  The ornaments within their reach have been pulled off and put back on many times.

Our tree at the end of day one.

While redecorating the tree that night, I found a stash of Cheerios in the tree!  Bahahaha!

The end of day two, which resulted in five broken ornaments.

I can now say that I am extremely thankful that we didn't get our tree a week earlier!  I THOUGHT I had wanted to, but that was before I fully realized what having a Christmas tree with toddler twins would be like.  It will be better next year, right?  RIGHT????

While they are full of destruction and it's a little stressful to make sure they don't strangle themselves with Christmas lights, I am loving the fact that we are getting to experience this time of year with our kids.  We have kids!!!  It still boggles my mind that after so many years of being married without kids, that we now are so incredibly blessed to experience what it's like to be parents and start our own holiday traditions.

It's blurry, but sometimes that's the best I can get with an almost 2 year old!

The stinker wouldn't look at me for a picture!