I’m learning that the first Christmas in a new house can be both very exciting and slightly overwhelming. The girls have questions about how Santa’s going to find their new house and we have questions about where everything has been packed, not to mention, where it’s going to live once unpacked.

After a few years in the same home you can pull out box after box of Christmas decorations and know exactly where everything goes – but not this time. Thankfully Sabrina took the lead on finding new homes for all of our stuff, and as usual she completely knocked it out of the park. Check out the mantel!

Next, we had to conquer the Christmas tree! Cutting down our own tree has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. I did it growing up with my parents, brother and sister and now it’s something I do with Sabrina and my girls. Year after year I find myself cutting down a bigger tree than the year before. And year after year I, at some point, question my own motives. This year, with 23 foot ceilings in the living room of the new house, you can probably guess how that went…

The 14 foot tree seemed like a great idea – until it was time to put the lights on. Here I am an hour in, trying to keep it together.

The struggle, while real, was worth it to see the look on the girls faces when they finally got the OK to start putting their ornaments up. Can you spot Elsa?

Sabrina has implemented a purple and silver colour scheme (with lots of sparkle of course), with ribbons and topped with a silver star. My favorites are the personalized ornaments that we’ve collected over the years. Some from when it was just Sabrina and I, then some from when we had Myah and of course now that we have Layla. Each year, there are at least a couple casualties, unfortunately this year it was a glass ball from the year Layla was born.

Even though Sabrina & I stayed up until 2am getting this bad boy done, decorating the Christmas tree is still one of my absolutely favourite parts of the holidays. What are some of your favourite family holiday traditions?