lionel | Real Mom Time (RMT)

Happy Friday, RMT’ers! I’ve always posted a few photos of our holiday decorating and decorations around this time of the year (you can see a few of those past posts here and here), so why not do that now – on the 12th day before Christmas – and make it a Foto Friday?

The tree stand fits! No, that’s no accident, RMT’ers… C is an engineer. No, not a train engineer, though that hat might fit here as well!

OK, Buddy, we can wait one more day to get a tree this year. Darn elf!

First things first: The trains. Yes, these are the same trains from the table that C built to hold the train we got from JoePa last year. We’ve added a few more trains since then, as most train enthusiasts are bound to do.

Lowes: Home of minute-or-less Christmas tree shopping… well for us anyway!

This is how the tree looked for several days. I don’t know why other than we were being super-procrastinators.

Getting there, slowly but surely (?!).

While picking the tree this year took all of 60 seconds (we don’t dilly-dally, folks), trimming it this season took almost a week! I’m not sure why we lagged given we’ll have one less week this year to enjoy it. But as always, it eventually got done and with much excitement and loving care.

As C took care of the train details, T took care of most of the tree decorating. I pretty much just unwrapped the ornaments and made a few suggestions. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas indeed!

Enjoying the trains – and a job well-done.

Way to top that tree, T!

Then of course there are the other decorations. I didn’t snap a ton of shots this year of the actual goings-up, but you get the idea here…

Yeah, that candy cane didn’t stay up above the door frame. Thanks for trying though, C!

An easy way to decorate the house for the holidays year after year is to save all the kids’ artwork and reuse it! I know T loves to see his come back out at this time of the year just as much as I do, too. I also love the fact that we don’t live in a museum either, so this type of decor totally works for our home.

Advent calendar central!

Oh, and what Christmas decorations are complete without lights?!

It’s too bad I can never get a picture of C putting these up, but it seems I’m always otherwise engaged or out of the house when he gets it done!

And finally: Our Christmas cards. They hit the post this week, so I’m not going to post a “spoiler” just yet, but I did want to give big credit to C and T for pitching in this year and helping to get those things stamped and sealed and out of my hands!

You can see our previous years' cards down the right-hand side there, and the ones we've received thus far this year to the left and across the top. I hope more come soon. I'd hate to think the whole world's gone digital (sniff).

You can see our previous years’ holiday cards down the right-hand side there, and the ones we’ve received thus far this year to the left and across the top (and Buddy’s up there, too – Hi, Buddy!). I hope more cards arrive soon. I adore the tradition of sending and receiving actual paper holiday cards, and I’d hate to think the whole world’s gone digital (sniff).