Decorating for Christmas...Take 1, Take 2, and Take 3

Every year I intend to decorate the day after Thanksgiving, it doesn't happen. One of these years it will, I hope. So we've been trying to get the decorations up as early as possible so we can take them down right after Christmas because Tyler's b-day is so close and I want his b-day to be separate from Christmas so he doesn't feel jipped.
Take 1
So Monday, Dec 8th we decided to start decorating. The problem was the kids were really not behaving too well, so we stopped. We got the tree up and the stockings. If you look closely at the picture you can see 3 stockings for mom and 3 stockings for dad. Mike put them all up and said that the kids could earn their way up to the stockings wall. I think it's hilarious...hey if you can't torture your kids once in a while, then what's the point?

Tyler was LOVING the tree! He thought it was great! He was standing there watching the star blink, and he kept looking at the lights. He's so cute.


Take 2
All week I was telling the kids, get your stuff done and we can decorate. They really don't like to listen to me, even when it will result in something fun. So in my desire to get things decorated, I just went ahead and let us do it last night. The kids loved it! These are the cutest Santas I've ever seen. (Our Santa hats seem to be too big, or too small. I feel like Goldi-elf and 4 Santas.)

Since the tree was already up, we just had to put the ornaments on. It's a tradition of mine to get the kids an ornament. I try to get one that corresponds with what they are up to that year. We also have the ornaments the kids make at school and a couple I've had since I was a little girl. The one with my name on it is from my head start program (like preschool) and the dog ornament is from Paula in 4th grade. Her mom made them for everyone in our class. (Why do I remember these things?)

A couple years ago the Antczaks came over for Christmas Eve and brought some treats and a little gift for me. Brooke thought it was an ornament...it ended up on the tree. (See the reindeer pot holder?)

Lynette and Dan sent us a package for Christmas and it came yesterday. They told us to open it early since it might not survive under the tree until Christmas morning. Here are the goodies we found inside...

Take 3
So as you can see in some of the pictures, Tyler REALLY loves to touch the tree. Before we even made it to bed last night this is what happened...

Yes, that's a santa hat, a tree skirt and just about every ornament at short man level. He had them in the basket you see there and was carrying them around the house. So take 3 was this morning when Mike put the tree on an end table and McKee helped me redecorate the tree with all of the ornaments from the floor.

Tyler isn't up yet, so we'll see how it goes when the tree is up high. I'm just hoping that he doesn't pull the tree on top of himself. Wish us luck!