Weekend Recap - decking the halls

This weekend was full of Christmas decorating, church, birthday parties and family time.  We tagged our Christmas tree a few weeks ago, brought it home last weekend and it's been sitting in the garage in its stand waiting for everyone to be home to decorate.  I am dead set on making this a fun family tradition that Olivia will always remember, I wanted to have special snacks, hot chocolate, Christmas music and we did just that.  Just us, the tree, the ambiance and the ornaments.    I gave Olivia an early bath, dressed her in her Christmas jammies, poured a little bowl of red and green M&M's and brought out the ornaments.  Olivia was SO excited! 

I swear this picture could be me as a child, Olivia looks just like me.

 We have tons of special ornaments - Olivia's first Christmas, my first Christmas, ornaments of Olivia's favorite characters like Minnie, Elmo and Cookie Monster.  My all time favorite, the Grinch, ornaments I made as a child etc etc etc.  It was so fun to see Olivia marvel over each one and play with them.  A few of her favorites are no longer on the tree since she seems to think that they're toys.  We even took the Grinch ornament to church Sunday night because she insisted.     The night was perfect.  Olivia truly had a blast decorating and I love that she actually gets it this year.  She talked about baby Jesus and Santa and she knows that the reason Santa brings us some presents for Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birthday.   Last year we bought Olivia a little people nativity set and we're going to put that up tonight.  I'm praying for the right words to explain the true meaning of Christmas.