It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I've never been one to pull out the Christmas decorations the day after Christmas. Maybe it's because my birthday is in late November and I've always felt like the whole late-fall/Thanksgiving part of the season has been skipped over by the retail industry. Maybe it's just because I want to go shopping on Black Friday. Either way, I usually wait until December to jump into Christmas.

This year, for some reason, I was raring to go--really looking forward to it (even before Thanksgiving). Mind you, I still waited...at least until November 30. That night we decorated gingerbread houses, kits given to us as a joint birthday present. I worked with Adah, and Maggie worked with Damon. Gunnar discovered them the next morning, and although they suffered some damage, they are still mostly intact.

On December 1 I started pulling out the Christmas decorations, and then throughout all last week I continued to add and rearrange. On Friday, Maggie, Gunnar, and I spent time outside putting lights on our fence.

By Saturday, with the stereo playing carols and the house smelling of cloves & cinnamon, we were in the full Christmas spirit and ready to go visit Santa Claus at the local middle school.

Well....some of us were more ready than others. Adah did just fine. Gunnar approached cautiously, accepted a candy cane, but went no further.

Notice that there's no photo of Maggie with Mr. Kringle. She gracefully declined to visit with him.