It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Christmas has completely snuck up on us - what a whirlwind! Luckily, we got our tree right after Thanksgiving, so we've been able to enjoy it all month. The girls love it, and Megan is in charge of turning the Christmas lights on every day. She's very intrigued by Santa, so this year, Christmas morning should be really fun. Even Bridget can recognize and point to Santa, a snowman, angels, and the Christmas tree - she's a smartie!

The process of getting the tree and setting it up took about a week, of course. With kids, everything moves much slower than it used to! We set up the tree, strung the lights, hung the ornaments, and decorated the rest of the house all on different nights. Here's a little look at the progression, starting at the Christmas tree lot in Burlingame:

In order to fully educate our daughters on everything Christmas, we are currently in the possession of at least 20 Christmasy library books - I'm not joking - we have a good chunk of the holiday selection. (Sorry Meredith, since you're the only other person I know that might care about the Westlake Library children's book inventory!) And, once fully acquainted with Old St. Nick, we headed to SI to meet him in the flesh. This is a cute annual tradiiton for kids/grandkids of faculty members, and it was a lot of fun! Of course, as grandchildren of faculty, Joey and Clara were there too!

This was the best we could do for a Cecchin/Stecher family photo:

Megan was very excited to meet the man who's supposedly bringing her a Snow White toy!

But, when it came time to sit on his lap, she wasn't so sure. Incidentally, how cute is her little vest?

Bridget was not quite as excited to see Santa walk in,

and this picture speaks for itself! We'll try again next year!

Here's Bridget in a calmer moment: