"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

Setting up and decorating our tree is one of our most favorite traditions.  We usually do it the weekend after Thanksgiving.

I had to capture a rare moment of cooperation between these two, who are so very much alike that they often butt heads. 

 Seriously, watching these two laugh together was the highlight of my day. 

Many, many years ago when we started the tradition of buying Christmas ornaments from all the places we traveled, I envisioned some future moment of my children unwrapping ornaments from their storage packaging and recalling with fondness, as they looked at the ornament, the trip we took and the place we visited.  Well, this year it happened.  We had the moment.  The kids were so excited as they took each ornament out of the box.  I heard things like, "Oh, I forgot we went to Jamestown.  That place was so fun."  "Oh, look, it is the ornament from Niagara Falls!  That was so cool."    And, "Remember when we went to the top of the Rockafeller Center in New York?  That was the best view."  I loved every minute of it--as much fun as it is for me to recall all of our travels, it is even better to listen to my children reminisce. 

We didn't do too many travels this year and only bought one new ornament from the Olympic Game Farm (which disappeared somewhere on the tree--I need to go find it and insert a picture here).  However, I was excited to discover the ornaments from our Holy Land trip last year, which only hung on the tree briefly after our return.  One from Bethlehem and the other from the Old City of Jerusalem. 

 It is the most wonderful time of the year.