My Tree Elves

I'm pretty lucky to have such a great husband (let's just say for starters that his office is really busy closing deals before the new year and so without complaint or acknowledgement he's been going in to work every day for the past 2 weeks at 4am and working until after 6pm) but he does have one flaw (at least from my Christmas music year-round listener perspective): he doesn't really care about Christmas decor. He could care less if there's a tree or lights or anything. The first 6 years of marriage he got away with this attitude mostly because he was slammed with finals and we traveled every Christmas anyways so I ended up setting up our meager decor by myself. And last year he got away with it because we had a newborn and it seemed like too much work for just being around 3 weeks in December. But this year THERE ARE NO EXCUSES!!! Okay except for the being crazy busy at work thing. So I let it slide again and resigned myself to another year of setting up alone...
and then 3 little magical elves appeared. VERY ENTHUSIASTIC ones too! So I guess Taylor gets off easy this year (and maybe next) since I've found myself some new little people to share in the joy and the fun!
These 2 seriously loved every step from sorting out the fake branches to putting them into their holes (like puzzles) to fluffing the whole thing.

And then the ornaments were the best part! When we lived in DC I put our tree up on an end table in between couches so the babies couldn't reach the ornaments. That was my plan again this year since Miles is fully mobile and shiny balls are way too tempting. Of course following the big boys up the step ladder was also TOO tempting... and resulted in a few bonks and bruises.

Of course shiny balls aren't the only tempting thing around... randomly dropped ornaments are great for chewing too.

I love these shots. Just classic. Ethan is saying cheese but not even bothering to look at the camera. Isaac is smiling but with his eyes closed. Somehow I got lucky with Miles this time although he's missing his socks because of course he refuses to keep them on. 10 seconds after this picture the camera survived a 5 foot drop while I tried to catch the tree since Miles decided to pull it right off the end table.

So on to plan B. Baby gate in front of the tree. Not nearly as fun. But effective.

Okay so not so effective since he can still reach his tiny hands through and if he grabs hard enough can pull those shiny balls off the tree- of course in pulling so hard they tend to shatter. And then they're no fun. At least he's given up for now. And thankfully he's not smart enough to realize that all he'd have to do is fall on the gate and it would crash into the tree and he could get whatever he wants.

Oh well. We've got a little bit of Christmas cheer this year at least.