It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's true that at the Hansen household, the Christmas season lasts twice as long as most other houses. I just can't wait for the decorations, the smells, the music, and the good feelings -- there's really nothing that could take it's place. Upon the request of my sisters, who don't get to enjoy our festive spirit all the year through, here are the pictures of our decorated house.
We put up our family room tree the day after Halloween. It was incredibly early (the earliest we've ever decorated, in fact), but definitely worth it. We have loved just sitting in the family room--whether morning or evening, just so long as it's dark--and looking at the Christmas lights.
I was way excited to put up the entry tree because it was brand new this year! I used some of my money from teaching at the music school and purchased this huge tree (of course the cheapest one I could find -- I was excited, but I'm still crazily frugal). The entry tree took a few days to assemble and decorate (as I was mostly doing it myself while Jon worked), but I feel pleased with the end result.
The trees are lovely, but you may have noticed that all the decorations (on both trees) start about 3 feet from the ground. Kale absolutely loves the trees, and if the decorations are high enough, he generally leaves them alone. But, put a few within reaching distance, and he thinks they are his personalized toys (unfortunately, we found this out the hard way).

So, the pictures above are the family room (p.s. does anyone in the Castleton family recognize that special advent calendar hanging on the wall?), our village, and the fireplace in the living room. Just so everyone knows, the decorations in the living room #1-look better than in this picture, and #2-have a little more than you can see. On the other side of the mantel, there is a glass vase full of gold & silver sparkly balls with sparkly branches coming out the top. It adds some nice color -- if I do say so myself.

The final (and frankly, my most favorite) part of our decorations are the manger scenes. There is something about a manger scene that I just love, and one day I hope to have so many I won't even know what to do with them all. They're just so beautiful. So, this year we're up to 5 thanks to Mom's hand me down manger scene that she was going to throw away this year (thank goodness I put a stop to that travesty -- throw away a perfectly good manger scene? Never!)
You may be wondering why I included the picture of the mantel, but what you may not realize is that there are 2 very tiny manger scenes there as well -- although, to be quite honest, you really can only see the trains. Oh well, just knowing it's there is enough.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot that the girls also have a manger scene. Actually, it was given to Rachel about 3 years ago from Marmee, and she loves it. Sometimes it is an acceptable play thing, but on the night we were putting up the decorations, we had an all out war on our hands trying to get Rachel to accept Hallie's help. The above picture was taken after many, many attempts at setting it up to perfection which were almost all foiled by the nefarious Hallie Hansen (at least that's the Rachel viewed it). Seriously, if you had been here, you would have thought there was some serious trouble taking place, but it was really just Hallie messing up Rachel's organization. I never realized what a perfectionist Rachel is. I know she doesn't get that from me.

So, there you have it -- the Hansen's have officially started there Christmas season, and we are loving every second of it!