Deck the Halls... fa la la la, yeah.

I had a great Thanksgiving holiday. I really did. I didn't get out of my PJ's much, I put off showering until the last possible acceptable moments, I spent oodles of time with my kiddos. I had no schedule, no deadlines, very few obligations and none that I didn't enjoy. It was great.

And we decorated for Christmas! This is quite possibly the earliest in my life I have ever gotten decorations put up. My family would wait until the last minute to decorate-- not out of tradition so much as the realization that if it didn't happen by Christmas Eve, it might as well not happen at all. (Then the decor would stay around sometimes as late as Easter.) But I got a jump on it this year.


We aren't getting a traditional tree this year. It's somewhat heartbreaking to buy a live cut tree for just a few weeks of use, but an artificial tree feels wrong too. So we are probably going to get a "living tree." We did this 2 years ago. You buy a living tree in a pot, keep it outside, then bring it in for a few days to decorate and enjoy indoors. But it goes back outside until next year when the whole thing happens again. We think we could potentially get 3-4 years out of the tree in the pot, and then we will plant it.

This great plan offers up the dilemma: What will we hang the ornaments on? Even if we waited until we brought the tree inside, we still have too many ornaments for such a little tree. So I came up with a solution: Hang garland across the mantle and fireplace and have the boys decorate it.

Kindred and Elias are slightly (ok, majorly) symmetrically-deficient. They group things together that I would certainly advocate spreading out. They don't care.

And here's Elias modeling the near-finished product. The plan worked better than I had imagined. I have since replaced the red bow in the middle with a few silk poinsettias, added some blue balls and white lights. I have also organized the mantle and added our wonderful Peruvian holy family statues. It looks really nice, if I do say so myself.

And here's my crack-up kid. Elias kept running around the room repositioning himself and smiling beautifully for me so I could take his "pitcher" when he requested (demanded) it.

Isn't he a nut? And speaking of nuts, Kindred heard the popular Spanish Christmas song that permeates our radio play today, and proceeded to run around the house singing, "Red-DEE snotty duh! Red-DEE snotty duh." He is most definitely not bi-lingual.


Slightly unrelated to the post, I must add a huge HOORAY and welcome to Willa and Anna, the best set of news today.

And the worser news is this: I wanted to add pictures of the finished living room decorations that I am so proud of. Alas, technology has failed me. I went to take the photos just now and uploaded them. They all look similar to this one:




Our trusty camera was a gift for Michael presented at his "Man Shower," right before Kindred was born almost 4 years ago. It has been an essential part of our lives. And now it seems it has snapped its last photo.

(Alas the bog is about to get real boring....)