It's Starting to Look a Lot Like Christmas... in the Hafen House

It's December and I am just now getting my tree up. I usually break out all of the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. I actually did this year only to discover the lights on my pre-lit tree no longer worked. I decorated the house anyway but it took us a few extra days to figure out what to do about the tree. In my laziness, I just added new lights on top of the old ones. Shh don't tell anyone. But in my defense, you can't even tell. And my tree is gorgeous this year!

Funny how having a baby brings out your inner child. Mine comes screaming out during the holidays. I love the idea of creating memories and traditions for Harlow. She is definitely too small to understand a lot of them so I don't push them on her. Like the advent calendars, or the elf on the shelf. I think those will have to wait until next year. But I want her to feel the magic of Christmas and the holidays in general. So instead of doing my bronze and gold Christmas trees that I've done in the past, I made sure to bring out the bright and actual Christmas-y colors. My house is looking like it threw up Christmas. Just the way I like it :)

My sister-in-law (yes, the same one who takes our pictures) is also great at sewing. And I am not. So she made me the tulle garland (project found on pinterest) for the tree. Which I think makes the entire tree. Here it is first going up.



And two hours later (that's not a joke) it was finally finished. Just in time for Pete to come home from work and put on the star for us.




I had Harlow trained in 30 seconds flat on how to pose with the tree!


Today I took a few pictures of it in the daytime since trees are hard to photograph at night.




She likes to stand in the same spot every time I ask her to take a picture with the tree.


We had some leftover lights that are suppose to go on the trees outside our house, but instead of doing that tonight I just tossed a couple on the floor and let Harlow play. While I snapped pictures of course. (Idea also stolen from Pinterest)






Here is Dad demonstrating what to do for Harlow.








And our Christmas cards just arrived in the mail. So that is what I'll be spending the rest of the night doing. I wonder if I can get Pete to lick all the envelopes...