It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yay for the holidays!

I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones (mine don't make me extra-ornery -- don't need any help in that category, thanks -- but rather extra-weepy and extra-sensitive to things like tradition and sappy endings and apple cider and Sinatra Christmas songs) but this year I'm really getting into Christmas.  At least compared to most years.  It's the first time I've had my own family Christmas tree -- last year, we had a big poinsettia and a sad little Charlie Brown tree in a red pot that couldn't handle the weight of one ornament, but we were brand-new parents so were too exhausted to care -- and the first time I had to put up lights and ornaments by myself.  I turned on some Christmas tunes (thank you, Pandora!) and had some caffeine-free apple cinnamon tea (not the bubbly I was hoping for, but there's always next year) and was all set for the Christmas spirit.

Then Anika discovered that it was really fun to pull the lights off the tree and watch mama say "no."  I think she has erroneously deciphered that "no" is akin to "hilarious" or "do it again, Sam" or "please, repeat and repeat and repeat."

The tunes were still playing, my tea got cold, and all in all it was more of a work-out than it would've been otherwise.  Must've done about 20 sets of lunges and the equivalent of a few line sprints thrown in for good measure.

So, most of the ornaments are still in their boxes.  It's probably best to wait for the last possible moment, then quick snap a family photo in front of the tree, then get the breakable ones back in their boxes again. Some of my friends here from the mom's group I'm a part of have surrounded their tree with a kiddie gate and fence contraption, but I refuse to buy one of those things.  My child is not a dog.  (Ok, so she does crawl around the house with things in her mouth and pick up junk from the floor and come when I yell, 'c'mere, Anika, come on!' but still, she doesn't need to be fenced in).

Before he left for another trip to China (and left the fate of the tree in our hands), Armando humored my need for tradition and we went to a place called the Galloping Grace Children's Ranch Christmas Tree lot.  Side note:  can't wait to take Ani to this magical galloping place, a mere 10 miles from our house, next spring where they have promised free pony rides.

Anyway, even sans snow it was very holiday-esque to pick out the tree, and they even put on a tree stand for us (they called it the "marriage-saver stand").  All we had to do was plop the thing down and water it when we got home.