Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer!

This year we decided to get our tree from a tree farm. After looking online (and finding about a million choices!!), we decided to go to a farm that had a train store, mostly so Amos could enjoy the trains. When we got there and saw the pricelist, we were a bit surprised and despite our efforts to find a tree we could afford, we left empty-handed. Sad, I know! BUT...Amos had so much fun running amongst the trees and watching and playing with the trains, so it was worth it.

Later that day, we upheld the Meeks Family tradition of going to the local Home Depot or Lowe's and picking out a tree. That was also fun, in its own way.

When we got home, Amos and I made "snowman" cookies (sugar cookies using a snowman cookie cutter) while Nathan put the tree in the stand. It was too late to decorate it, but it was still fun to have it in the house and make Christmas cookies!

On Monday, I added lights to the tree, since it would be awhile until we could decorate it.

And this morning, the time came. We ate our breakfast and then resolved to finish the tree and put up our other decorations. We turned on the Charlie Brown Christmas music and Nathan made an amazing smelly concoction for the stove: pine branches, cinnamon sticks and cloves in water. It smelled so Christmasy!!

Amos got soooo excited about decorating the tree and would even exclaim almost between each decoration, "Awe, the twee is sooo PWETTYYYYY!!! It was definitely fun to share that with him this year. And after Nathan put the star on the tallest branch, we decided that our tree looked a little Dr. Seuss-y. That's ok with us, we like the way it all turned out!

I cleared off the mantle and put our Nativity scene up. Amos really liked it! And finally, we cleaned up our front porch (threw away the out-of-season pumpkin!) and added some greenery here and there.

Even though we've been reading the Christmas story in Amos' Bible, we hope to do more of the daily Advent readings and try to enjoy all of Advent and the Christmas season, not just the day.