Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

The one nice thing about being on a tight schedule is that things get done earlier than usual. While it may not seem early to anyone else, having our tree up before Dec. 5 is early for us. As we prepared for Robert to go on the last hoorah before the final hoorah we knew we only had one shot to get the Christmas Tree up if we were going to do it as a family.

Collin loved his first trip to the Christmas Tree lot. He ran around among all of the trees until he finally decided on one (mom helped in the decision a little), our perfect Christmas Tree, at least for this year :) He enjoyed decorating the tree even though he couldn't figure out why the ornaments wouldn't just "stick" to the branches. He would place them so carefully and then we'd hear, "uh, oh!" as they fell to the floor. Maybe next year he'll understand that they hang on the tree, not stick to the tree.

After all of Collin's investment in our tree I really thought he'd love it, but he couldn't care less. I get an, "ooh, look" when the lights are turned on, and then he's off to something else.

Why are we as parents so much more invested in our children being excited about Christmas than they seem to be? Collin is afraid of Santa (see Breakfast with Santa post), has no idea that a present is exciting and only says "baby" when we show him a manger scene. So, we continue to push the holiday, knowing that in just a few short years we'll have red and green paper chains crossing the house and advent calendars with no chocolate left after Dec. 3. It won't be long before he'll be dying to wait in line for an hour to see Santa, will be unable to go to sleep on Christmas Eve and will be bouncing on my bed at 3 a.m. shouting, "Santa came, Santa came!"