Who is taller than our Christmas tree?

Everyone in this house!

Here's the scoop on Christmas trees in our family: Tom and I had a 6' real tree the first few years of our marriage.

Then when Lukas came along, I bought a 4' prelit fake tree that would fit on top of our entertainment center. We used that for two years, then when Lukas was almost 3 and Natalie was 1, we had a real tree again (because Lukas knew not to touch the ornaments, and Natalie wasn't crawling yet).

The next year, Natalie was crawling, so we went back to the fake tree on the entertainment center. This year, I think Natalie could be taught to not touch (but it might take too much effort on my part to be worth it) but Konrad is definitely too inquisitive...he would probably pull the tree down as he pulls up on it. So it would seem we're back to the 4' fake tree.

But there's a wrinkle. This year, we're planning an "extreme home makeover" of the living room and dining room, and we're going to start on December 26. So we contemplated not having a tree at all, because I didn't want to be packing up Christmas decorations as well as packing up the whole living room/dining room.

The compromise was a 2' prelit tree I found at WalMart (like how we get 2' smaller each time?) We decorated it (background music was an Il Divo Christmas CD), put it on the piano, and on December 26, it will go on the kids' dresser...and now we will have a Christmas tree for a kids' room for future years. Ok, we're slow in getting trees into the kids' rooms...we've got two birthdays right after Thanksgiving, so I definitely need to start planning for Christmas in October!

Lukas and Natalie are really happy with the small tree, and I know they will all love the big tree we get next year!

P.S. Why is the tree on the table? To keep Konrad out of the decorations. Why is Konrad in the high chair? So he can see what's going on. Two parents, three children, camera...you have to compromise.