It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

     Christmas preparations are officially underway at the Washington Rumely household! And I am loving it! I am also loving my sweet husband who puts up with all my Christmas craziness in the most good-natured way.  
     To begin the Christmas season, we took Owen to see Santa on Saturday before we went to buy a Christmas tree. We paid to be able to use our camera to take the photos instead of having the person there take a picture and print it out for us. Owen cried at first when we sat him on Santa's lap, but he calmed down once Santa let him play with his jingle bells. My mom says that it is exactly what I deserve because I was always scared of dressed up people when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure she even had to bribe me to hug Mickey Mouse when we went to Disney World when I was 10. 
     After sitting with Santa for a few minutes, Owen still was not entirely sold on the idea so we never got a smiley picture of Owen with Santa, but the suspicious "Who are you and why are you holding me?" picture was pretty cute too. Stay tuned for our Christmas card to see that one. We also let Owen check out some reindeer while we were there. 

     The place where we took Owen to see Santa also had Christmas trees, but after I didn't see any trees that I liked, we drove about 40 minutes away to Bill's Berry Farm to look at the trees there. We ended up buying a 7-foot-tall Noble Fir. We generally have bought Leyland Cypresses in the past, but the Noble Fir is so beautiful and full and smells so amazing!

When we dragged the tree inside, we realized it was much bigger than we had thought it was. And Owen was surprised that there was a tree suddenly placed in front of him.

      The next day we strung the lights and then waited until Owen was asleep so that we could hang ornaments together while drinking eggnog and munching reindeer cookies and listening to a mix of Christmas music. It was such a great time and especially great for us because the only other time we've had a Christmas tree while we were married, Tim had a 103 degree fever and was really sick so he just hung out on the couch while I decorated that year.

Our finished Christmas tree!