O Christmas Tree

We don't normally do Christmas stuff prior to Thanksgiving around here, but I have to admit this year I am pretty excited about it.

1. Andy and Doug are just reaching the age where they "get it" so they are excited about it
2. Josie can already say SAN TA (and that is how she says it...two really distinct syllables).
3. Our Christmas decorations haven't been out in TWO years! That's right 2 years. Two years ago the boys were Josie's age and our tree never actually ended up with more then about ten ornaments on it. It had chili pepper lights that the boys picked the covers off all of the ones that they could reach (the tree lights were red/green at the top and white at the bottom). Most of the ornaments I haven't actually seen in three years.
   

So we pulled out the tree tonight and I at least got the Christmas light stuff up to the appropriate place to be ready to go outside. Doug & Andy are really excited about the lights.
Jim and I put up the tree tonight. The tree box was one of the boxes that suffered some water damage in the storage unit so it doesn't seem moldy or anything like that, but the metal the branches are on are rusty so we decided that we will use it this year and then throw it out. The tree is at least 9 years old already (just prior to all of the pre-lite trees) so not a huge issue to loose it. We'll hit the after Christmas sales to get a stellar tree. The kids and I already walked through one Christmas display in a store and Andy wants a blue tree while Doug wants a pink tree....somehow I think I'd rather go for a fairly traditional one and if it has lights already on it that's even better.