Gwilly's Sillies: Christmas Traditions

As a young family, we are trying to establish some Christmas traditions. Slowly, I think we are succeeding.
First of all, we go pick out our Christmas tree.

After perusing the rows, we all come to agree on the perfect tree. How long will it take before we don't all agree?!?!

Then, we take it home and decorate it. The kids love pulling out all of the ornaments and telling us which ones they remember and which ones are their favorites. (Except for Addy, who has no idea what we are doing!)

For some reason, the tree gets an awful lot of ornaments down low and in front, but the rest of the tree is lacking.

The ladder does help, a little bit.

Addy's motto on life, "Anything you can do, I can do better".

The Dad helps also!

Addy finally got the hang of it and the bottom branch of the tree was very populated with ornaments, for about a day. Then, they slowly started to fall off and be placed on higher branches. Hmmm, how did that happen!

I'm not sure which is cuter, the finished product or the three in front of it!

Putting lights on our house is a tradition my husband would probably like to pass on. However this year, he was rewarded with a "my house is beautiful" from Addy. How can you resist that! (And no, that's not a weather vein, Chad likes to see how many dirty looks he can get from cars that drive by wondering what Dad lets his kids on the roof!)

We also like to go see the lights on Temple Square, even if it is very cold!

One of the events the kids look most forward to is Chad's Christmas party at work. They are very family oriented.
They had cookie decorating,

Crafts and coloring with the athletes,

And, you can't forget the annual family picture with Cosmo!

We also like to go to Aunt Jenny's house to make gingerbread houses. (The mess is much better over there!)

He designed it himself. Do you think he's a chip off the old block?

It's always more fun when you are with the cousins!

Plus, then when the girls don't want to make their's right away, they can hang out with Kalin,

or have some sips of their favorite beverages.

Emily actually crashed on the couch before she made her gingerbread house, so we had to have another session the next day. (So I got the mess at my house anyway!)

Since we already had one mess, we continued the tradition of making and decorating Christmas cookies with the masses. Friends, neighbors, cousins, come one, come all!