We put our Christmas tree up last weekend and took all the obligatory pictures. I am feeling a bit more festive than I was last year and we dug a little deeper into the ornament totes – ohhing and ahhing and saying, “Do you remember when…” I love looking through the ornaments, especially the ones that I can remember hanging on my Christmas tree when I was a little girl – the angel ornaments have always been my  favorite. Like this one:

Of course the best part for the kids is putting the angel on top of the tree at the end. In theory we take turns each year, but each year the kids argue over who did it last year – which is one of the reasons I’ve gotten into the habit of photographing the topper putting on process (also, it’s adorable and makes my heart strings feel all melty and warm) – sometimes the kids need visual proof that they in fact DID put the topper on last year and that the DO have to take turns. There may have been tears. I’m not proud.

And my favorite part is the bokeh – after I’ve finished dealing with #thestruggle of taking cute pictures of the kids in low lighting and trying to get the tree to look nice and glowy and make kids look in focus and human-like and not just a blur of motion with strange faces attached. Once I get the mother guilt necessity to photograph the fact that my children were present for tree decorating out of the way, I can indulge in the blurry and bright goodness that is bokeh – and then we can all sit back and enjoy the bright lights and festive glow that a lit tree seems to cast in our home. In between yelling at the dog to not eat the tree and the kids to not karate chop each other right next to it.