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I have always been a “one holiday at a time” kind of girl, so when Thanksgiving was over I hadn’t even thought about Christmas yet.  But everyone else on our team already had their Christmas trees up, so we had to kick it in high gear.

Growing up with an artificial tree, it doesn’t bother me at all that they are the only option here.  So, we found one that’s the same style as I grew up with it and we think it looks great.  The boys loved helping us put it together.  It was especially fun for them that EVERY single branch of the tree was wrapped in a little tube of plastic, so they had great fun helping me pull them all off.  We put up the lights, ribbon, and red and gold balls.  I found a poinsettia and put that at the top, although Jake recently informed me that he doesn’t like it and wants to have a star on top.  Ha.  Next year, son.  You can handle it for a few more days.  If Derek had an Indian name I think it would mean, “One Infatuated With Balls.”  So it took a couple of days, but we finally trained him to stop taking them off of the tree (though he still needs a reminder every now and then).

Clearly not thrilled about putting that ball back on the tree.

After getting all of our store bought decorations up we realized that we were missing our own personal ornaments that we thought we brought with us.  We are still not sure what happened to them.  So, that’s a bummer.  But we still think it looks pretty.  And we think it’s kind of funny that it also looks like we just picked up one of those demo trees from the store and brought it home.  We would have made some homemade ornaments the last few days, but I came down with a stomach virus.  Hopefully we’ll get some cookies made soon so we can at least hang those on the tree.

And last, but not least…we did something fun this week that I never imagined we could do here.  Santa was at the mall in Lima, Peru!  Only his name was not Santa.  It is Papa Noel.  But he looked the same and was very friendly.  I wasn’t sure how Jake was going to react to him, because I know I was really afraid of him when I was his age.  Before we left home I told Jake what we were going to do and he was really sweet.  He got super excited and then started gathering up some of his toys.  He said, “I want to take these to Santa so he can have some toys to give to other kids.”  So proud of him!  When we got there I was impressed that Jake walked right up to him, gave him a hug, and sat in his lap like he’s known him forever!

Derek on the other hand, really did not like Papa Noel.  He screamed his head off and clung to my arm for thirty minutes afterward until we were FAR away from that oversized, red and white teddy bear of a nightmare.  I have never seen him so scared in all of his little life!  Now I know what I looked like at his age when Santa was near.  Mom said when I was three, even, my brothers were trying to bribe me and talk me into sitting in his lap as we walked the stretch down the mall.  Not happenin’ boys.  I totally understand, Derek.  So sorry to put you through that torture, just for a cute picture.