Christmas spirit.

I love the holiday season. There just seems to be a totally different spirit in the air. Some of that is happiness, music, warmth, but also stress and more fast pace with people trying to get there Christmas shopping done. This time of the year is even more special with Tyler in our lives and I seem to be enjoying it even more. As I contemplate on the birth of Jesus Christ this year, I become emotional when I think of this beautiful baby being born whose life was destined to be hard and was going to bear the sins of everyone so that we could return to our Heavenly Father. I think of Tyler and how innocent he is and what a happy boy he is, then I become saddened because I know that he will also face hard times and live in a world with so much evil that seems to be getting worse. I can't help but want to just hold him and protect him from all of that. I know he will be a great person, but I don't want him to see that evil. I can just imagine that Mary must have felt that even more knowing that her child was the chosen one. My hope this year is that I contemplate more on the true meaning of Christmas and not on the material or commercial meaning.

I've decided that I was not going to go overboard with getting gifts for Tyler because he doesn't care and he is not in the stage where he needs a lot to make him happy or occupy him. I do want for him to experience the traditions we hold during this year or the traditions that we will start this year with him. We went to get our tree this week and it was so much fun because we had Tyler. It was cold and windy,but Ty was such a good sport and still happy. We went to this small family owned lot and picked a beautiful tree. With a larger house I wanted a slightly larger tree, but the space that you imagine the tree to be in always seems larger in your mind. Our tree was definitely bigger than last year. I almost thought it was not going to fit through the door, but in the end it looked nice in our living room. The difference this year is how long it is taking to decorate it. With a baby everything takes 10 times longer and even after 5 days I am still trying to finish decorating it. I love the scent of a fresh tree even though we would get our money's worth out of a fake one. Eric and I decided that as long as our children were young, we would get a real tree because of the tradition of going and picking it out. That is one thing that I cherished when I was a child and Eric also has many great memories of it as well. I hope that our children have wonderful memories of this holiday and not just memories of the gifts that they received.

Here is a sneak peak of pictuers to come. I can't reveal too much because not all of my Chritmas cards have been sent.