Christmas Joy

Putting ornaments on the tree

Christmas Rocks!

Dennis took a week's vacation the week after Thanksgiving and took advantage of that time to put the Christmas lights on the house, put out our yard decorations, put up our two trees, and decorate the inside of the house. Every day when I would come home from work, I couldn't wait to get home to see what Dennis had put up that day. The true joy was watching the girls' faces light up as the house looked more festive!
The most exciting moment for everyone was putting the ornaments onto the family tree. We have a million ornaments! I have a ton of ornaments from my parents because it was a tradition to get an ornament each year for each of us Hall kids so that we would have ornaments for our Christmas trees when we started families of our own. I love seeing the ornaments from my childhood every year. Dennis also has ornaments from his childhood but not as many. Mine have a tendency to dominate the tree because I also have received countless ornaments every year from students and friends. We're also carrying on the tradition of buying ornaments every year for the girls so we just keep adding to the number every year. The girls have also started receiving ornaments from grandparents and close family friends. Needless to say it's hard to find a spot for every ornament.
The second Christmas tree in our home is Dennis's Star Trek and Pepsico ornaments tree. Dennis started collecting the annual Star Trek ornaments about two years after they started the series. He's very proud of his tree but Haley insists that it is her tree and she has decided that daddy's tree will hold her handmade ornaments from daycare.
The final touch for Christmas decorations was the four nativity sets. Dennis always saves these for me to put out. This year was the first year for Haley to help me put up the nativity sets. I have a big nativity set, a Precious Moments nativity set, a miniature glass nativity set, and a miniature Mexican nativity set. Haley helped me put up all four sets while asking me many questions about who everyone was, what was baby Jesus doing, and why didn't baby Jesus have a birthday cake since it was his birthday? I loved spending that quality time with Haley carrying on a Christmas tradition that I know that she will always cherish. We'll include Lauren in the tradition in two more years.