Just Her Size

In the past 10 years we've been married we have rarely decorated for Christmas. We always end up traveling halfway across the country to be with family during our two-week Christmas holiday vacation, so it seems like a lot of unnecessary work to decorate and not be here to enjoy it.

This is Penelope's first Christmas in the U.S., and it appears that we've had a change of heart. Since the day after Thanksgiving we've been busy putting up a tree and pulling out the holiday decorations people have given us over the years. I guess having a child causes you to cling more tightly to your family traditions and make new ones of your own.

Penelope was a pretty good helper when we put up the Christmas tree. It is the tree I grew up with that my parents handed over to us when they replaced it with one of those fancy-schmanzy pre-lit trees. The directions for assembling the tree have long since been lost, but by process of elimination we managed to put it together piece by piece.

"Found it Mommy!"

By Penelope's bedtime the tree was assembled, decorated and lit. Penelope was quite impressed.

The problem with Christmas trees and toddlers is that there are way too many temptations. Our solution was to give Penelope her own tree that she could touch and experiment with all she wanted.

So far our plan has worked.

But we'll see how long it lasts...