O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Yep. The Sunday BEFORE Thanksgiving, and the tree is already up. Haley has been stoked for Christmas this year. I told Kelsee earlier today that I think this year will be the best one so far because Haley is so into it. Kelsee reminded me that I said that last year. And the year before that. And... Anyway, Haley's love affair with Christmas began a couple of weeks ago when an American Girl catalog showed up in the mail. She carried it with her everywhere she went for three or four days. She had it already in her mind that Santa was bringing her one, even though Kelsee pointed out that they are for girls eight years old and older. Didn't phase Haley. She rarely gets that obsessed with anything that's not in the candy family, so this was serious. (For all those that don't know, American Girl dolls cost like $10,000 and only come with one little outfit; Kelsee said this is a "rite of passage." Oookaaay...) Then about a week ago, Haley suddenly became obsessed with putting up our Christmas decorations, something we normally do on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Haley was very insistent. Somehow she convinced her mother (probably with a sweet hug and a "Pleeeeeze, Mama? Pleeeeeze! Oh-please-oh-please-oh-please!!") So the decorations went up on Friday and the tree went up today. The only real drawback is I'll get tired of the Christmas music by December 10th instead of the 17th, but that's a small price to pay to have Haley excitedly running around the house, as she did this afternoon and evening, telling everyone in hearing distance that this was going to be the best Christmas ever. Putting up the tree is a definite event in our house. Kelsee made a new recipe of some awesome orange rolls, we spiced up some cider and we went to work. It was quite a day. But the tree looks great and a very happy 5 year old is tucked warmly into bed while visions of American Girl dolls dance in her head...