Morrison Family: Christmas Trees

There is no doubt that Liliana has inherited my love of all things festive. A reason to pack the calendar full of family, friends and fun?!? We'll take it! The only thing that finally brought her down from Halloween was our Thanksgiving trip to Costa Rica. (I honestly don't think she stopped talking about Halloween until we de-boarded!) And, as hard as it was to leave Costa Rica, I was very excited to get home and begin the Christmas celebrations which will be closely followed by her 2nd birthday.

The day we got back from Costa Rica (yes, the evening of the Yo Gabba concert) Adam and I started unpacking some of our holiday boxes. Liliana was so excited. "Those Christmas decorations? Those too? BEAUTIFUL MOM!" We immediately started in with the Christmas songs and books and it made me so happy to see how excited she was about the holidays and Santa Claus. We go outside to look at the Christmas lights almost every night. She loves all of the decorations in our home and around town. She asks about Santa and Christmas every day and we have Christmas music playing non-stop. I am pretty sure she thinks Christmas is a month long celebration. Around here, it kind of is. :)

The Morrison's Christmas Tree Lighting:

Here is our 11+ foot tree. The base is 7 ft. Adam figures that it took about 4,000 lights. We made a few trips to the store to buy about 15 boxes of lights this year, and we had a lot from our normal-sized trees the years prior. In this picture you can see that we had to drill the special base designed for large trees into a piece of plywood because it kept tipping over.

Cinderella decking the halls

The final product

San Clemente's Christmas Tree Lighting:

Our kick-off to the holiday season was the San Clemente tree lighting. We met up with the Gendreau and Riece families and everyone had a great time. There were carolers, hot chocolate, treats, decorations, Rudolph (Liliana's fave), Mrs. Claus, AND Santa rode in on a Harley to read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Liliana followed the reindeer around for a majority of the night and got jealous whenever another child tried to have a turn talking or taking a picture with him. She wanted him to hold her and keep her with him all night.

When Santa arrived I ran her over to say hi. She wasn't half as jazzed about him as she was Rudolph. "I like dat hat Santa. Where mine pwesents?" When he said that he didn't have them for her that night she took off to play with her friends.

We had dinner together afterwards at Avila's. It was a perfect start to the "most wonderful time of the year"!

Liliana and Jack made the Orange County Register.

Jack and Liliana in the sleigh: