Pre-decking the Halls

Well, Merry Christmas! It only took me a week to get the three or four evergreen garland swags outside my house properly connected and lit up. This is still less time that it took my neighbor across the street to deck his halls in seven million lights. I and reasonably sure you can see his house from space. Every year, the outdoor lights (such as they are) make me swear I will not be doing them the following year and every year, my boys get all excited about the go-getter neighbors who have their lights up by Halloween and bug me relentlessly about decorating our house. I figure that someday I will make THEM do it, while I sit inside with a book and hot chocolate (and Sis does the dishes). That's how it works with older kids, right?

Last night, he decorated the inside of the house and put up the kids tree for Family Home Evening. The kids tree evolved from the year that we bought a real tree, which shrivelled up and died about 6 minutes after we had it fully decorated. By a week before Christmas, it shed dry needles at the vibration of anyone walking by and threatened to burst into flames when we plugged the lights in. It was too close to Christmas to justify another tree and too far away to just deal with it. So, I bought a cheap little white tree in its place, which then became the kid tree. Each one gets their box of ornaments and they get to decorate however they want.



This is why most of the ornaments are concentrated on the lower branches and Bubbas karate belt is acting as tinsel. They boys were not satisfied with the amount of ornaments they each had collected, so they tossed a few toys in there as well.


Such as Monkey


And Belle


Sis didn't want to put anything at all on the tree. Nor did she want her brothers to. We witnessed the first of the Christmas season tantrums. They aren't any different than the tantrums from the rest of the year, but they are generally accompanied by the soft blur of Christmas lights and the knowledge that there is egg nog in the fridge. Makes them extra special, you know? ;-)


After we put scrooge to bed, Junior requested paper so they could make their Christmas lists, while eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate and watching a Spongebob Christmas special.



And then he asked me to make sure I took pictures of it all, so he could remember it. I think he definitely has inherited my supreme sentimental junkie tendencies. As soon as I am done here, I'm going to draft an apology letter to his future wife.