when's Christmas?

I receive this question every single day from Neland.  Every morning I hear, "Is today Christmas?" and then it's followed up by "When is Christmas?" or "How many more days till Christmas?".  We have Christmas marked on our calendar and we have a countdown (or up rather) to Christmas. 

We finally picked out our Christmas tree last weekend. I think we may have been the last people in town to get one. The boys had fun running around.  Neland even picked our perfect tree!

 

 I love these two pictures. The mischievous grin on one and the angelic glow on the other.

 The boys loved passing this big Santa every weekend.  Now they could actually touch it.

Both boys helped decorate. Neland loved it and was so careful. He'd unwrap an ornament, ask if it was breakable and if it was, he'd set it on the table, if it wasn't he'd hang it on the tree. Teague hung one or two, admired them and then headed up for a nap.  I recorded his reaction when he came downstairs after we'd finished decorating.  It was so sweet. He'd point out the different ornaments saying "bird", "George", "Santa", "Snowman". He knows so many new words!