Meilani picks her first Christmas tree

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Gilmore home. We continued our tradition of going to our local Christmas tree farm (or lot, as it were) on the day after Thanksgiving to pick out our tree. This time Meilani joined in the festivities. Last year she was such a little elf she had no idea what we were doing. This year she followed the boxes of Christmas decorations coming out of the garage and joined us for the action.

"Tree," shouted Meilani, leading the way down the aisles of fresh trees. She got a little distracted playing chase with Daddy in and out of the rows but then we got back to business. We were tempted by the sweet, Charlie-Brown-style trees right at Meilani's height. In the end, we settled for six-footer perfect for the usual spot in our front room near the fireplace.

We also checked out some of the fancy wreaths. Mama dreamed about a huge wreath but we didn't actually get one. We decided to save our moolah for other holiday decorations and all the holiday parties to come.

Meilani loved the wreath with the large, crimson jingle bells. She tried them out - just to make sure they were working properly. She was also fascinated by the guys cutting the bottoms off the trees with chain saws. The big noise got an "oh my" face from this little girl.

And Daddy gave his matching "oh my" face when he actually got our tree in the patio door. Then we were on to the lights and decorating. This year Meilani was very aware of all the Christmas sensations. She was "WowWowWhoa"ing all the lights on the tree and the brightly-colored ornaments. She helped out with the bottom row. She wanted to help with the nativity scene but after she broke Joseph's arm we decided to move on to a different task. Her favorite past time, of course, is pushing the button on the dancing penguin scene. Who bought her that?