christmas FRIDAY!

i did pretty minimal prepping for christmas, other than conquering hanging the christmas lights on the porch, and decorating our tree after todd and my mom felled it.  i decided to be all 'good and memorable mom' this year and let atticus and penelope help trim the tree.  ahem. 

those ten minutes of memory making involved an hour of sorting ornaments earlier in the day, dividing them into categories such as: "belong to atticus," "belong to penelope," "belong to me but unbreakable so let the kids do it," "breakable so todd can participate by hanging them up high," "no one but me will ever touch these - they're lucky they even get to gaze upon them," and "where did i get this ugly thing?"

then, during naptime, i tried desperately to string popcorn and cranberries to bedazzle the tree with, only to get engrossed in a documentary about home birth and to call it quits on the garland.  not to mention, it was my first-ever attempt at popcorn-and-berrying and i used fresh, rather than stale, popcorn.  rookie mistake.  i'm pretty sure there are enough popcorn crumbs in the basement to feed the resident army of mice.

anyway, decking the halls: we set about our tree trimming shortly after dinner.  i had todd pick up some apple cider from the store and was all set for a cozy night of making family memories.  i had visions of the kids looking lovingly at each ornament before finding the perfect branch - nay, bough - for each treasure.  instead, the kids were basically grabbing fistfuls of ornaments as quickly as i could get the hooks on and sprinting them over to the tree where they'd pass them off to todd and dash back for what few new ornaments i had gotten hooked in the last 2.3 seconds.  and even though i had put on christmas music for a relaxing and memorable ambiance, it was basically all family force 5 christmas music which really only served to make the kids want to breakdance.  also, the cider initiative was a flop considering the kids weren't interested in anything but chucking ornaments, todd doesn't like cider, and i was too frazzled to drink mine before it got all cold and gritty-feeling.

here sis is trying to convince the tree that even a tree needs the right pair of pink mary jane sneakers to finish the look. 

ten minutes later, the bottom half of the tree was crammed with ornaments and the grown ups kids were ready to be done for the evening.  after the kids were in bed, todd and i finished with the top half of the tree and the 'finishing touch' ornaments (the kind you buy at the store in a ten-pack so they all match and make your tree look like you meant for it to look this way rather than found it on the side of the road last christmas after it had fallen off a bean truck.)

after all was said and done, i'm glad we got to include the kids this year in some of the excitement of preparing for the season.  and i'm glad it was only ten minutes.  and i'm really going to write a lot of christmas-related posts so i don't have to take all the ornaments off anytime soon.