It's beginning to look (and feel!) a lot like Christmas!

The Christmas tree is up!  I only recently realized that Savannah has never before had a full-sized Christmas tree.  We were out of town for several weeks around her first Christmas, so I didn't bother with decorations in 2010, and for the past two years, a combined fear of Sav pulling the tree over on herself/Jason not having enough room to get around have led me to putting up a little 3 foot tabletop tree instead of a big one.  But this year, we took the leap and put the full-sized one up!  We have an artificial tree, which doesn't smell nearly as good as a real one.  On the other hand, the fake one doesn't trigger my allergies, so we go without the lovely aroma.

As I was pulling the tree out of the storage room (which has become my personal hell...anyone want to organize it for me?), I realized that I had never actually done this bit of Christmas decorating before.  The last time we had a full tree was well before Jason's accident, and he was the one responsible for putting it up and making sure everything worked.  It's been a while since I've been confronted with a "new" task created by the accident.  I'm happy to report, though, that after some initial wrangling, more than a few naughty words, and a healthy amount of scratches on my arms, the tree finally went up. I'm not looking forward to dismantling it, so we may well have a tree up for a few months :)

Hanging ornaments was fun, and, as always, was a nice trip down memory lane.  It's nice to revisit important moments in our lives, as well as to remember many of the places that we've traveled (a new Christmas ornament is our go-to souvenir when traveling).  

The rocking horse ornament we picked up on our first family trip to London.

Sav's newest ornament--a ballerina to commemorate starting dance lessons this past year.  And her "S" from last year (when she learned how to spell her name and was borderline obsessed with the letter "S")

The first ornament I ever gave Jason...way back when we were 17 :)

We have Sav's Santa photos from every year hung up, too.  

I really thought I had thrown this away during one of the darker periods post-accident.  Savannah and I bought this ornament in Tahoe, while Jason was riding in Death Ride, just a few hours before he was injured.  I'm happy that we're (I'm) in a good enough place to hang this up this year, because Tahoe represents an important part of our family story.

In addition to decorating the tree, Savannah and Jason put together some Lego scenes we've gotten over the past two years.

Now I just need to wrap gifts (ugh), and we'll be all set for Christmas.  And, unlike every other year we've been in California, it actually feels like Christmas--soooooo cold!  I've complained about this in the past--it's hard to get excited about Christmas when its 60 degrees out.  I won't complain anymore.  Bring back the mild weather!