a christmas tree!

black friday, the day right after thanksgiving, has to be one of my favorite days of the year. not because of all the sales and all that mayhem, but because it’s the day we *finally* get our christmas tree. marriage is certainly all about compromise, because if it were up to me, that thing would be up the day after halloween. and for josh, he insists that we wait until after thanksgiving because if we don’t, then it means we are skipping thanksgiving or something. but don’t thanksgiving and christmas go hand in hand and wouldn’t it be amazing to celebrate them together?!

after josh finished work on friday, we walked all around the upper west side checking out the different christmas tree stands on the corners. we found a big one for our front room and the littles picked out one their size for the nursery. this year will be interesting though. samson has tried to walk off with the tiny tree in the nursery twice already. he also managed to throw and break 3 glass ornaments before we even strung up the lights on the tree! he is a fast one. we strung lights up on the entire big tree but only decorated the top half so he can’t break anymore ornaments! it looks…interesting. but it’s growing on me. life with kiddos is always an adventure.

ps. these photos are iPhone shots and edited with the vsco cam app.

^^^eleanor helped decorate the big tree! they aren’t all pictured, but we counted 5 panda ornaments. E has such a soft spot for panda bears i guess our families and friends have taken notice. ;) ^^^

^^^in addition to putting on her own lights, eleanor really wanted to decorate her tree, too. we tried to explain that only lights were probably best with samson, but she convinced us to let her have “just one” red glass ornament and so we did. once she moved on to coloring though and forgot about the tree for a bit, we snuck the ornament away. she hasn’t noticed yet, thankfully. ^^^

^^^listening to christmas music while getting that big tree ready! also, sorry my hair looks so bad here (i mean, AWESOME!). sometimes you don’t wash it for a few days and then you have hat hair on top of that and then it’s a little bit ombre which means when you throw it all on top of your head it looks something like that on the right. is that a cat on my head? cool. ^^^

ps. a christmas tree from last year (E’s tree, too!) one from the year before in DC, and more trees here and here and a video of us decorating the tree from wayyyyy back in the day, too. (i can’t help it. did i mention i’m a fan of christmas trees?.)