Getting Ready...

We are getting ready for Christmas--we leave for almost two weeks of holiday traveling on Tuesday morning.

A few weeks ago we picked out a Christmas tree, along with Alex, Erica, & Elsie...

...and decorated it a few days after that. In among the ornaments was a sparkly, curly bow from some past year's present--Simon loves it, so much that it has lost several of its ribbon strands, already.

Simon thinks the tree is great fun, especially pulling on the baby-friendly ornaments we hung from the lower branches, and pointing out whenever it is lit up. (Pointing out lights--on OR off--is his new thing, and he's amazingly good at it. We'll go to a place we've never been, where there is some lamp that looks totally different from any he's seen, and which is turned off (so it isn't necessarily evident that it lights up), and he'll still point it out in his survey of the room's lighting fixtures!)

Simon has been encountering the Christmas story in various forms, though of course he doesn't realize it. When playing with this plush nativity scene with Grandpa, his favorite thing to do was put the hay in and out of the manger (he's becoming quite skilled at putting things in and out, and likes to practice by putting his pacifier places and then retrieving it, and by taking socks out of his sock drawer and putting them in other drawers). He is fascinated by lit candles on our Advent wreath, too, though he thinks Advent devotions take much too long and has little patience for sitting still while Mom or Dad do something as boring as read from a non-picture-book! In future years, we're hoping of getting an Advent calendar--or of Jess knitting one...either something like this (simpler) or this (more complex, but we like it a little better)--to add a more fun, child-friendly aspect to our Christmas preparations!

All of this preparation is exhausting! Its a good thing Christmas is almost here!