It's Christmas time again! Yea, yea I know...we haven't even gotten through the Thanksgiving dinner leftovers and already we are set for the next holiday. That's just another reason why I love this time of year; the swift changing of holidays! Just seems like I was posting about Halloween doesn't it?
While I am always ready to start listening to Christmas music & decorating for the season, I have to wait until after Thanksgiving (at least to decorate anyway). However, I'm pretty sure my food from our second meal hadn't even settled yet when Justin and I started to decorate last night. And let me just tell you...I did not want to do it! I was incredibly and wonderfully stuffed from eating fabulous food all day, and I was exhausted for the same reason. (Apparently eating as much as I did yesterday takes a lot of me). But, our Elf on the Shelf was on schedule to arrive at our house this morning and we had no choice but to turn the house into a Christmas Wonderland while the boys were sleeping...and blame it all on the elf.
So, that's what we did. After putting the boys to bed last night we put up the garland, strung some lights, set up the Christmas village, arranged all our collection of Santas, snowmen, and gingerbread people, cut & hung snowflakes out of coffee filters, and set the dining room table for our first Christmas breakfast.
Chan was super surprised when he got up this morning and noticed that Christmas exploded all over our house! He said "I guess Santa and his elves must've did it." Then he walked in the kitchen and spotted Shelf (our elf), hanging out in the light fixture. The little rascal. :)
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| Shelf the Elf |
Just so happened that in addition to all the decorating he did, he also left a letter & Santa hat for each of the boys, along with his book so we could be reminded of why he is here.
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| The kitchen table, where Shelf left their things |
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| So excited to open his letter! |
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| Didn't care about his letter...just wanted to dance. |
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| So happy to get his letter from Shelf! |
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| Chan's letter |
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| Liam's letter |
After our big excitement this morning, all the grandparents, Aunt Carly, & Uncle Mitch came over for breakfast. Ya know...because after spending a full day of behaving like a glutton, we just wanted to eat some more! The boys (okay, Chan) were so excited to tell everyone what Shelf had done overnight!
And, as is now the Koehn family tree tradition, we went out this afternoon to find and cut down our Christmas tree. After stopping to get my peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Steak N' Shake, of course (again, with the gluttony).
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| Ready to go find our tree! |
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| "I don't think these will fit..." |
We had a great time walking up and down the rows searching for the perfect tree. We didn't want a scrawny Charlie Brown tree (as much as we love them), but we didn't want a Griswold Family Christmas Tree either. You know, not too tall, not too short, not to full, not to bare, not too much sap, and no squirrels. Those were pretty much our qualifications for the perfect tree. After searching for a while (we found it takes a bit longer with a toddler), we found it! Yay!
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| The Koehn Family Christmas Tree!! |
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| Helping Daddy cut down the tree |
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| We did it!! |
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| Second year in a row that Liam's not looking |
Wow. Another night of exhaustion! We came home, set up the tree, decorated the tree, went to eat leftovers at Nana & Baba's (seriously...I have GOT to stop eating!) and then came home for bathtime and bed. But not before one more look at our tree...
"Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree.
In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall."
~Larry Wilde~
Till next week friends!
Brittany :)
P.S.- If you are looking to go and cut your own tree and are in the Nashville area, I highly recommend Rhonda & Chris' Treeland. That's where we have gone the past three years and we love it! Here is a link to their website:
http://www.treelandtn.com/ 
