O Christmas Tree

We always buy and decorate our Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year the kids did such a magnificent job on their Saturday chores that we decided to get Chinese food for dinner as well! It took us a while to get everything done and everyone ready.

Beth and Eva decided to be headband twins ~

Megan, Kylie, and Laura read Calvin and Hobbs while waiting for everyone to be ready ~

We always get our tree at Home Depot. They have the best prices. We always get a 5'-6' Fraiser Fir as they are the cheapest. We put or Christmas tree up in our climbing structure so it won't get knocked over by children or pets, so we can't get one taller than 6ft or it won't fit. One nice thing about getting a shorter tree is that it fits in the back of our minivan, even with all eight of us in the minivan. Have I mentioned that I love my minivan? :)

We texted Kiki as we left to pick up the Chinese food and she joined us just as we got home. She even brought cupcakes!

After dinner, Rob, Megan, and I set up the tree while Laura hung out with Kiki and Beth.

Kylie and Eva played on Kiki's phone ~

Rob and I put on the lights and the tinsel, then we let the kids decorate it. This year I got to pick what color lights we used. I always want multicolored lights and silver tinsel. Rob prefers a solid color - usually blue, although he often picks silver tinsel to go with it. We alternate picking the lights and tinsel colors. 

All of our ornaments are kid friendly. They all have ribbon or string instead of metal hooks and most of them are plastic. The kids love redecorating the tree over and over again throughout the month of December, and this way we don't care if they play with the ornaments. Plus it makes packing them up super easy as we just throw them all in a box. Kiki partnered up with Eva this year.

Rob apprehended Kiki's phone while the kids were busy decorating the tree.

Megan's lovely ballerina-tree-decorator pose ~

Laura took a nap on my lap ~

Eva (well Rob really) put up the angel this year. 

Kiki and I had to laugh when the angel was put up. The top branch stuck out a good foot above the tree. I guess it could represent that the angel was really floating above the tree . . .

But we had Rob cut it anyway so the angel fit a bit better. There were two branches at the top and we kept them both, which made the angel fit better as it couldn't wobble. There was an ornament on the smaller branch that Kylie hung so she would have the highest ornament. Rob kept her ornament on that branch and just stuck the angel over it. It's all about details at our house ;) For anyone suffering from OCD, I strongly suggest having 6 children in 10 years. You will give up on being OCD out of desperation :)

The finished tree ~

Megan put on one of Beth's dresses as a shirt and asked me to take her picture taken with her Russian princess ornament ~

Group hug for Kiki before the kids went up to bed and Kiki when home to bed! ~