Christmas in WI Comes Early

As soon as Thanksgiving was over, we gathered all of our Christmas decorations and brought them inside from the garage. I was giddy going through all of the ribbons, ornaments, and nativity sets.

I looked around our apartment...and remembered that we are temporarily in a very small space. I further remembered that we have an ever-increasingly curious & active toddler.

We opted out of most of our Christmas decor, and this was our tree for the 2009 Season:

And it was PERFECT.

We kept our Christmas tunes going almost every day in December and the spirit of the season was alive in our little home. A few days before Christmas, we had our own little *family Christmas*.

We didn't get very many photos (took more video--J opening & organizing the gifts was such a sight!), this is the best one:
We opened gifts from Grandmama & Granddaddy (we weren't sure if we'd be able to visit for Christmas so they brought wrapped gifts & left them with us when they came in August!), and J opened a few from Santa as well. Who knew Santa visited Wisconsin early?

:)

Trevor & I didn't really exchange gifts this year, we're saving $ for a nice little Nikon that is calling our names.

The evening was perfect--J enjoyed every second of the gift unwrapping and we were cozy and warm in our home with all the snow flaking outside. We had hot chocolate and talked about the true meaning of the holiday.

We left just days later for our holiday extravaganza trip (see post below!), and will return tomorrow. What a trip! I'm going to wake up and wonder where 1/2 of January went!!