Putting up the Tortora Christmas Tree

One of the many traditions we have continued in our family from my childhood is putting up the Christmas tree and all of the decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Having a three piece pre-lit tree helps make this possible. Last year I hit up the after Christmas sales at Target and spent $20 to completely redo my tree for this year. I wanted it to look more kid like and girly for Guiliana. With colors including pinks, greens, oranges, blues, reds, and silver, and the best part is some of them are glittery and sparkly, it reminds me of something out of Who-ville! Guiliana was very excited to help, but with these being new ornaments we had to attach ornament hangers to each of them, she kind of lost interest during that process. She wasn't very interested in putting the ornaments on the tree, she decided that she wanted to go through the Christmas bins and play with everything. After it was all done she said "Thank you for my tree mom, it's so beautiful. You did that for me mom?" She did enjoy once it was done looking at all of the ornaments on the tree. Her first Christmas we ended up buying like 3 "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments between Grandma Tortora and I. I started a tradition with Guiliana last year. Every year I want her to have an ornament that represents her interest for the year. Last year she LOVED Tinkerbell, so her being so young still Grandma picked out and bought her a Tinkerbell ornament. We have gotten her last 2 ornaments from Hallmark so I thought we should continue that tradition. So today we had to run out for some things and decided to stop at Hallmark and let her pick out her 2010 ornament. I wasn't surprised when she picked out an Ariel ornament. I love that we started this tradition and that all of these that she continues to pick out will someday be on her tree when she grows up.
We finished our Christmas decorating with the outside today and now our house is complete. I love our house during the holidays!
Her ornament:














Love this picture! This was taken today at Johnny Rockets. Gules and I shared a chocolate milk shake.