Black Friday.

This is one of my favorite days of the year. Not because of all the shopping and the great sales, but because all of our Christmas decorations come out. While everyone else is out fighting the crowds the girls and I are knee deep in Christmas mess. We light a fire and play Christmas music and spend the day trying to remember were we always put everything. Emily has the Christmas gene just like me. She loves everything about this time of year. We spend the most time on our tree. Every ornament is so full of memories. When I was growing up my grandmother would buy each of us girls a new ornament each year. She would take us to the Hallmark store and let us pick it out. I always took the longest trying to decide from all the beautiful ornaments. Grammy started the same tradition with her her grand kids. Each year as we but the ornaments on the tree we seem to have a story for each one. Emily loves finding the ones she has made in school and even some that I made when I was little. My favorite ornament is one the first one my grandmother let me pick out. I don't remember going with her to get it but she loves telling the story. I wasn't very old and she said I looked right at it and said "that one." She said it was the most expensive one in the store but she didn't care because it was the one I wanted. I still love this ornament. It hangs high on the tree, out of the reach of little hands. Thank you grandma for making our tree so full of great memories.




This is my favorite ornament. Each year Emily and I argue about who will get to hang it on the tree. She can hang any other ornament that she wants but I will always get to hang this one.

Each year I try to find the girls an ornament the represents something they did or liked that year. Emily played soccer for the first time this year so she got the Santa with the soccer ball on his head. She was even the #1 like Santa. Gretchen started dance this year so she got the ballerina and Natalie is just cute so she got the gingerbread girl. I hope Gretchen and Natalie love Christmas as much as Emily and I do.