Teddy Bears Help Decorate the Christmas Tree

There is so much to get ready for a big family Christmas celebration.  It was coming up soon, and Grandma Jenny still had a lot to do, so Grandpa Bob and Uncle Edwin went outside and cut a tree and got it put in the stand.  The little bears were very excited that they would have a tree to climb inside the house.

Grandpa Bob set them straight about that right away, and told them they BETTER NOT!  It's bad enough having kittens climb it, and bears are a lot bigger.  He told them it was inside because he was going to decorate it.  Of course, they wanted to know all about that and started pawing through all the breakable ornaments as soon as he opened the first box.

Grandma came in to the living room and told the bears that she had very special ornaments for them to hang on the tree.  Each bear got it's own ornament with name (letter and number, actually) and the year 2011 painted on it.  She told them that when they got adopted, they would get to take their ornament with them as a reminder of their first Christmas and the year they got adopted.

The bears were so cute, stretching to try and reach the branches.  There were a few incidents of the domino effect, when one would lose it's balance, and the whole row of bears would topple over!
Starting from the left with the red bear, this photo is of T5, T7, T6, T3, T4, T11, and T9 in the back on the stool.

The photo on the left is of T10 on the top step of the ladder, T2 on the bottom step, T8, T1 (mostly hidden behind T8), and T5 again.
T1 is in the photo at right.

Just as a warning to anyone thinking about letting bears help decorate, Grandma Jenny says they do all right with the ornaments, as long as they are plastic.  Keep them away from the fragile glass ones, though, and don't let them help with the garland!  As you can see in the picture below, these little bears managed to get completely tangled with it!

T10

T8

T1

T7

T2

T3

T11

T4

T9

T5

T6

It was fun doing this shoot with the bears.  They all looked so adorable under the tree, and each one of them has such a different personality, that really came out in the photos.  I think they are all perfect matches for each grandchild.

In my next post, they get adopted and named.