Decorating with Children.

First, disclaimer! If you are looking for a practical, helpful, well worded, blog post on how to incorporate your young children in decorating for the Christmas season... SKIP THIS ONE.

I had the brilliant idea of using our time this weekend to pull out the Christmas decor and begin setting things out, beautifying our home, and teaching my small, dear, ones the TRUE meaning of it all. Doesn't that sound lovely and perfectly domestic?! :) There's something precious about watching a baby's reaction to their first exposure to twinkling lights, or a 3 year old girls curiosity in the Nativity. Priceless! So, up came the bins from the basement, off came the lids, and out came... well, I'll just let you see what has happened in the span of one day.

 

And, from another angle...

 Lastly, to include even more of the true disaster...

Needless to say - Christmas decorating has turned into...something else entirely. At one point my big girl had Nativity characters, the Nutcracker, and her baby dolls all lined up together for a jolly good time, I'm sure. The one year old thinks the basket of shiny ornaments are for her personal pitching practice. On the upside, her aim is getting better ;) When she's not chucking "balls" all over the place, she's grabbing the things from the autumn decor bins and mixing them in with the Christmas stuff. I'm sure in her mind she's helping.

Some good did come from the experience.
I got the stockings hung! And, some porch lights put out to sparkle at all of 4:30pm when it's pitch black here. I was able to whip up a center piece for the dining room and got most of the autumn decor pulled down from all over.

In all seriousness. It's complete chaos in my living room, as you saw. But the thing is - and maybe it's the most important - it has been so much FUN with my children. They are laughing, smiling and having amazing pretend. "Mommy, this pine cone is the daddy." {in the "family" of pine cones}

Ava is watching as I plan and place things around the house. She was given the task of decorating our small, plastic, tree in the dining room - and she's taking that very seriously. Every bulb has to be perfectly placed. I'm impressed at her attentiveness to it! A few times I've heard her echo things I had said to her earlier about "taking care" or "being very gentle".  August, well, she's 18 months old and just a whirlwind right now. But she's loving all the color and her sisters excitement. :) And this is what it's all about. We prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior and King, Jesus! That is something to get excited about every year.

So, maybe this was a good idea, after all ;)