O Christmas Tree...

Every year one of my favorite childhood Christmas traditions was getting to decorate my tree that went in my bedroom! Kerri and I would always spend a long time carefully unpacking each of our own special ornaments we had handmade at school and then beg Mom to help us put the lights on our individual trees so we could get busy decorating! We loved being able to go to bed that night beaming with pride at our handiwork and watching the colored lights glow in our ordinarily dark rooms. To us as young children, this meant that Christmas had come!

Last year when I was pregnant with Ansley, my Mom and Kerri, knowing I wanted to follow in the footsteps of our old family tradition, gave me an early Christmas present for Ansley. It was a "Baby Girl" tree and vintage baby ornaments! I hated to pack it away last year but I knew as I did that in just 11 months I would be pulling it out for my eighth month old baby girl to see for the first time!

This year, I decorated the tree while Ansley was napping and went ahead and plugged in the tree while she was still asleep. I even got crafty and made a little pink tree skirt out of toile scrapbook paper to make it extra girly! Then...I waited. As soon as I heard her make a little peep right around her wake-up time, I ran upstairs and cracked open the door. She stirred around a little while in her crib and then pulled up to a standing position. I am not joking...her face literally "lit up" when she saw the sparkling lights! She smiled, cooed, and held her arms up for me to lift her out of the crib. During her nap...Christmas had come!