Christmas is coming to town

We set aside today to take a family picture at Sears, take Micah to see Santa, and decorate our home for Christmas. As the old saying goes, two out of three ain't bad. Turns out that it costs a minimum of $20 to have your picture taken with Santa. $20. My kid is 3 months old and will most likely not ask for anything unless Santa's a master at translating Micah's spit bubbles. I just wanted a cute picture of him with the guy in the red suit. For that price, I told Tim I would rent a Santa costume and plant him in a chair at the mall and he could let people take pictures of him with their kids for free. Oh, and if you do go to see the official Santa, the mall people have a big sign up asking you not to take pictures with your own camera because doing so may endanger Santa's ability to show up at the Brandon mall in future years. If you'd like to hear my thoughts on that, please feel free to email me directly and I'd be happy to expound on why I think this whole thing is the most hideous racket I've witnessed in a long time. My guess is that most of you can probably write that speech yourself. At any rate, the family picture turned out great and our home is now decorated appropriately as you can see by the pictures below. We're grateful for both of those things - oh, and finding a Santa hat that fits Micah! We took our family picture in jeans and white shirts and Micah was still wearing his when we decided to take this picture. We got a version of this at Sears, but neglected to order in favor of one we liked better. We recreated it at home though. Unfolding the tree. :( The pine scented candle was lit while we were doing this, and that makes it a little bit better. Micah supervised from his swing. Micah and Daddy in front of our tree!