Our Christmas tree and Girls night with my girlies

This morning we found Elfie having a little tea party with Strawberry Shortcake.

 He had a cute little teaset and cookies freshly baked... they all looked like they were having a good time.

Today we put up our Christmas tree.

We (or I) struggled with what to do this year. I really love having a real tree but I have a huge problem with having to pay $50 (or more) to cut your own tree at a tree farm and buying one from the grocery store isn't that much cheaper and feels so wrong. To me it seems like such a waste of a tree as well to use for just a couple weeks...oh the internal struggle because I really LOVE a real tree. Our tree stand also broke last year so we would need to buy a new one of those too. The girls had no desire to go cut down our own tree so when I was given a fake tree last week we decided that for this year...this was the best option.

Then I opened the box...and Ian thought it was full of maggots by the look of disgust on my face... (no pic sorry). I backed away from the box saying..."no this won't work...I can't...it's... it's covered in tinsel"!  I know I shouldn't kick a gift horse in the mouth but really...I have a problem with tinsel on my own tree!

But the girls were excited...they wanted to put up the tree, so we pulled as much tinsel off as we could and began decorating the tree...first the lights and a red garland...then the girls decorated most of the tree all themselves. My favourite part of decorating the tree every year is always about unwrapping the ornaments and seeing them again for the first time. So many memories wrapped and waiting be able to visit us again through the Christmas season.

The girls love putting on all the ornaments and are finally old enough to actually decorate all the tree and not just the bottom few branches...with a bit of help :)

 Sometimes ornaments get moved around a few times before they settle in their final resting place. You have to make sure it's perfect you know,

They did a wonderful job! Our tree might not be perfect but it's full of many memories and waiting for new memories to form this Christmas. Most of our ornaments are handmade. The ones that aren't still always hold special meaning.

 

After the tree was finished Sissy Meadow came over to have girls night with us. We did each others hair and make up.

Sierra did Sissy Meadows make up and hair.

 And Aayla did my hair...Take note of the double fisted brushing... this is serious work).

 And she did my make up...which was quite the ordeal. She took her time and carfeully completed my make up...ever so carefully.

 

When Sierra was done Sissy Meadow they switched and Meadow did Sierra...but Aayla still wasn't finished mine.

 When she was finally done me...she wanted to do her own make up...what she didn't trust my capabilities???

Sierra and Sissy posing for a pic!

and here we all are...

Aren't we just beautiful??? A fun family girls night for sure!