Putting Up The Christmas Tree

There was so much Christmas spirit going around after the pageant that we decided to put up the Christmas tree in our home right away. I know this is late by Manila standards where we see decorations and start hearing Christmas carols as early as October. Nevertheless, we decided to make it a tradition from now on that soon after the pageant we will set up the tree.

Now we've only had this tree for about 3 years now. And every year, we always take photos of this event. The first time around, we bought the tree and unpacked it straight away when Bianca was just 2 yrs old and Nico was an infant who was not even crawling! We had to carry Bianca up to put the star.

The next year, Nico was moving around a bit more and enjoyed playing with the big box with the tree. The first time he saw the xmas lights light up he started blowing them thinking they we candles on a birthday cake!

This year, we began by taking out the stuff from the garage. We proceeded by assembling the tree and putting it on the coffee table in one corner of the living room. Next we put on a new set of lights. Followed by the golden tinsel garland, and then finally the ornaments.

The ornaments from last year were just a collection of shiny balls. But this year we had something special to add to this tree. Over the year I secretly collected some of the small soft toys. Most of these toys came with the happy meal we have at McDonalds (e.g. Neopets, Pooh, Sesame Street characters). All up we had about 20 toy ornaments on the tree ... that means a lot of visits to McDonalds! When I took them out of the bag they wanted to play with them again. Good thing I was able to convince her that they will look better on the tree.

And this time, Bianca did not have to be carried to put on the star. She could just stand on the sofa beside the tree and reach for it by herself. Nico this time was a lot more mobile, but was not that interested in helping out with the decorations. He was more interested looking at his reflection in the xmas ball. But when he saw the lights go on the tree, this time he said 'Wow!'.

We can't help but be excited for Christmas seeing it from the kids point of view.