Big stars and little stars

First weekend of December now holds two beautiful traditions - the ballet concert and of course, the tree. This is our third year of rocking up to ballet, finding our seats in the darkened auditorium and waiting for the moment when I burst into tears over tiny ballerinas in pink tutus. I wish I could show you pictures, but our ballet school prohibits photography AT ALL during performances and this year didn't even do a curtain call. I am fairly miffed about that. 

The two ballerinas were ethereal, tiny and graceful, and completely worthy of my blubbering all the way through their performance. The older girls might technically be much more aesthetic, but watching the Monkey twirl and the Elfling flutter her gossamer wings was just beautiful. Proud mama. 

After ballet, I was allowed to finally unleash Christmas upon our house - or as Bingley described it, "vomit tinsel" while listening to Bing. Our new tree is lovely and lush (though I think part of me misses our old one) and we chatted about all the many special ornaments as they went on the tree. Each girl and boy helping to slide them on. Checking that we had all 12 days of Christmas, and that each trinket and bauble was located just so.

I had also bought the kids each a mini tree, with their own string of lights to decorate as they wished. They had great fun with the tinsel and lights and loved being able to choose whatever they wanted in the lay out of their own trees.  I finished off the room with our snowflake icicle lights and giant star, and sat in front of the tree long after everyone else had gone to bed, with a fruit mince pie and a glass of milk thinking of just how much I love Christmas.