Christmas is coming. How do I know? Because you can buy mint M&Ms at Target now. That means I can now eat the bag of mint M&Ms I had stashed away from last Christmas (for fear I may have gotten a craving for mint M&Ms in July...which I didn't because I had completely forgotten about them by then). Munching on mint M&Ms--yum!
Because Christmas is coming, and because this next week and all of December will be busy, and because we were feeling a little bored this weekend, we decided to put up the Christmas tree.
Building the tree is Greg's responsibility. David is always an eager helper.
By the time Mary woke up from her morning nap on Saturday, the tree was complete. She was thoroughly unimpressed with it. 
Actually, I think she was a little overwhelmed by the chaos.
Today David helped me decorate the tree. He watched with excitement as we unpacked the ornaments, and he asked me to explain the significance of each one. (In a stroke of good fortune, the first ones we unpacked were nativity figurines. He was eager to learn about shepherds and the hay in Baby Jesus' bed. He even requested that I teach him a song about the shepherds!)
David was a super helper. But 70% of the ornaments ended up on just 20% of the tree. Notice the high concentration of ornaments in the picture below.
When Mary woke up from her nap on Sunday, the tree was trimmed. And she was much more impressed with the tree this time.
Mary has already begun the game of pulling ornaments off the tree. 
This afternoon David and Mary played hide-n-seek under the tree: They both lay under the tree, and David would count to five, then "find" Mary, after which I would count to ten (on Mary's behalf) and then she would "find" David. Since they were both under the tree the whole time, the act of "finding" consisted primarily of giggling. (I wish I had pictures--it was so cute, the two of them hiding under the tree.)Mint M&Ms and cute kids under the Christmas tree. It's the most wonderful time of the year...
