Living in a Winter Wonderland

Christmas is almost here, and our house is a winter wonderland of decoration. Elijah is much more aware of what’s going on this year (I don’t think he noticed anything last year being only 6 months old). But at 18 months he loves the decorations (and seeing what happens when he tries to “redecorate” for mommy sometimes).

When we put up our tree Eli seemed kind of oblivious to the big tree going up in his living room (he liked playing with the box the tree was in much more!). And he played with the lights for about one minute before he got bored and decided that reading by Christmas tree lights was better than actually helping put them on the tree.

Here Dad, let me untangle those . . .

Hmm, I think I'll just fling them around like this.

Oh, these go on the tree! They're not jump ropes!

I'm bored. I think I'll read by the lights instead.

Once we got the ornaments out though Elijah was completely interested! I made a whole section on the couch of ornaments that he could play with (which was a lot more than I thought I would have originally!), and he had fun sorting them, taking them in and out of boxes, and stacking the empty ornament boxes too. By far his favorite ornament is the one I got for him this year – of, you-guessed-it, a frog. :) Driving in a little red truck, with wheels that actually move! Eli loves playing with his froggy truck!

Unloading some boxes for Mom . . .

This frog's got a sweet ride.

Organization and stacking are some of my strengths.

Once we put the ornaments on the real challenge began – how to keep Eli from taking them off!

Are you sure these go on here, Dad? It looks kind of funny to me.

I'll just be taking this off now, thank you very much.

We decided to just create a section at the bottom of the tree of non-breakable ornaments for Eli to take on and off. He now knows he can touch his froggy car, his Veggietales ornament, some stuffed penguins and snowman ornaments I had, and the football Santa Claus. Even with his “permissible” section, after one or two days of taking the ornaments off he pretty much started leaving all of them alone, except for his frog and a stuffed reindeer which he likes. The house feels so much homier and cozier with all the decorations up! I wish it was Christmas time all year long!

What a beautiful tree!

P.S. To any of you who were wondering, no, not a single one of my Santa bears are making an appearance this year. I didn’t feel like running around chasing Eli as he tried to take their outfits off, touched them with dirty hands, or stuck them in the plants. I decided to take the easy route and let the bears keep hibernating this winter!