Last night we finally decorated the tree.

But it was not without a little interest and charm.

When Ella woke up in the morning and saw the tree all lit, ready for the ornaments, she said, "Christmas!" in the sweetest little voice. But when it came to actually decorating it, she was tired of trying to hang the ornaments on the tree properly with the hooks. So she would just lay them on the branches and run back for more. After about 15 minutes she was done, and wanted to do nothing but watch a movie.

Max thought it looked best if he had 4 ornamets in the same spot.

Cameron's goal was to get the ornaments as high as he could. The tree is 12 feet high, and he really wanted to get some at the top. This caused way too much nervousness on my part.

In addition, a string of lights died on me (which caused 4 other stings attached ot it to go off as well). I had spent hours, and I'm not exaggerating, getting those lights on the tree. There are at LEAST 2000 lights up there. Luckily I was able to find the defective lights and replace them, getting the tree lit properly again.

The star kept toppling over, so our tree is topless.

Melvin had to break out the vacuum, as a couple ornaments bit the dust!

Some of the ornaments still need some adjusting, and I need to do some more trimming with some ribbon, in addition to finding a new star topper, but overall, I think it still looks pretty good.