Tie me down!

This Christmas resolve is getting out of control! I finished, yes I did say finished, assembling those Christmas cards last night. Now comes the hard part though...writing in them, addressing the envelopes and mailing them out. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting down last night and putting them together. Of course, I can't post a pic here. That would ruin the surprise. Just trust me, it's cute! We zoomed through school this morning so we could do a good cleaning/rearranging of the living room before lunch. This afternoon the kids and I put up the tree, decorated it, and put out the Christmas ornaments. Such fun memories and it was delightful to see my four working together as a team. Makes me a wee bit sparkly excited.

Growing up, we always did exactly the same thing on the tree decorating day. We drove out to this trailer park north of the river, picked out a tree, shoved it in the trunk of the car, and thanked the man in the coveralls for the Christmas orange. We'd come home, get the tree set up in the living room, and have a dinner of chili and bread. Then, after the dishes were done, we'd decorate. A couple hours later the tree would fall down and we would reassemble. I'm quite serious when I say every year. My parents are like that.

Last night, my husband and I were discussing our schedule over the next few weeks, deciding when school would end before the holidays (we homeschool), and he suggested that the kids and I decorate the tree today. There were a number of reasons why I initially thought that wasn't a good idea but I didn't verbalize them. Mostly, I thought this should be an evening event, I should be making some chili, is a girl even ALLOWED to string the lights on the tree?? By lunch today, with four very eager children, I knew that his suggestion was a great one. We have few evenings free over the next couple of weeks and we really want to relax when those do happen. While Gary enjoys the end product, I'm not sure that it makes or breaks his Christmas to unwrap each and every little treasure. I've got four happy children, currently watching Elf, who can hardly wait to show their Daddy what a good job they did. I should listen to my husband. At least once a year.

Pictures to follow when I capture that elusive beautiful tree shot.