decorating for the holiday with little S

Last year little S was so tiny I'm not sure that he really got any of the decorations or events that happened around the holidays; this year however, he is old enough to notice we're changing the decorations and things are getting lively.

Today we switched our thanksgiving decorations to our yule season ones. The menorah is still out as it's still Hanukkah and we have started decorating for the winter holidays coming.

One of the things I loved about Christmas growing up was getting and decorating a real tree each year. Sure it was a pain to water them and there were needles in the carpet at the end of the year but nothing beats that pine sent and the feeling of having a real tree. I wanted to share those memories with little S so we lugged M who being Jewish has never had to shop for a Christmas tree before, although I did point out that there is such a thing as a Hanukkah bush. We went and picked out our tree and brought it home.

Little S has not needed a baby gate in the main part of the house for some time and I had kept his baby jail off to the side with this holiday in mind. I didn't know how into the tree he was going to be and I wanted to keep it and the gifts safe from little S's hands.

He was not at all happy that we put the tree in jail. Dad went to work and he and mommy decorated the tree. Well in all honesty mommy decorated the tree and he slammed the gate to the jail from the inside over and over occasionally locking himself in with the tree.

we made several trips to the store in the end needing to replace all of the lights we had but in the end it was the start of a very nice tradition.

After looking at the tree... it's decorated with white lights, silver and pewter ornaments, crystal and white accents it didn't look right to me anymore. I've had most of these ornaments and decorations for over 10 years, it's a classic look that I love but this year it didn't fit anymore. It wasn't lively or colorful enough. I had a package of colored ornaments that I've had for years that never came out of the box because well my tree isn't a colorful tree.. I broke open that box yesterday and little S and I added touches of pink, green, blue and purple to the tree. Little S has added so much color, and flavor to my life that the classical tree just didn't fit anymore and I couldn't be happier.