I Blinked and Christmas was Over

As much as I love decorating for Christmas, I was dreading the 2+ hours I spend unraveling light strands and bringing boxes in from the garage.  Soooo we broke down and bought an artificial tree.  Christmas is long over and I'm still a little sad about it.  But getting the tree all decked out in 30 minutes was pure bliss.  Maybe we'll go back to a real tree one year...

 

Most of our decorations have remained the same but I try to shake things up as much as I can.  Here's our dining room light fixture -- the ornaments are new for Christmas 2012.  Thank you Pinterest for the idea!

 

Love this boy so much!

Another Pinterest steal.  The lights got hot really quickly so this photo shoot lasted all of 3 minutes.  They also took a beating when Nate dragged them down the driveway so I guess we'll need new Christmas lights next year.  Oops.

 

I think this way Nate's favorite Christmas activity.  I put a small artificial tree in his room while he was at school.  There was also a nice selection of ornaments on his table (Mommy-approved for possible breakage).  He was so excited to see them when he got home.  And I did a good job of letting him decorate on his own....I had to calm my inner Type A and suppress the urge to "help" him balance out the decorations.  He was thrilled with how it turned out and it was fun seeing him so happy.

 

Photo props are hot right now so we created some and took them to a friend's party.  Everybody seemed to have a good time with them (PS Chelsea was asleep during this photo).

 

There she is!  Chelsea on her first Christmas morning.

Had to include this pic of Nate's nativity set since it appears he has the Walker organizer gene.  Everybody is grouped appropriately.  I'm proud.  And a little scared.