Decorating for the Holidays

I'm no decorator.  Its taken me awhile to get used to this fact and not convince myself that I should be, but the truth is that stuff just doesn't bother me.  I can live with crooked lines on my Christmas tree and the fact that there's still a small pumpkin sitting on my shelf.  The unfinished trim in my house doesn't bother me, we'll get to it when time and money allows.  And you know what?  Its okay.  I love enjoying the beautiful decorating of friends and family, I love sitting on the couch sipping tea and drooling over home magazines.  Its just hard for me to find time putting it together in my own home.  I'd much rather spend the afternoon cooking or baking or playing the piano.  And its okay.  

But my house?  It doesn't come naturally to me.  And so our Christmas decorating is more about Drew bringing in the tree.  The kids tearing through the $0.50 bag of decorations I picked up at a garage sale 7 years ago and the music of my childhood playing softly.  Always at one point I stand with my head tilted wondering why my tree doesn't look like it did in my head, and how in the world do people do it.

A complete mystery to me.  And so I gave up, stepped back and the let the kids take over.

Listening to Nana Mouskouri's Little Toy Trains and making hot chocolate for the kids while they proudly place as many balls as they can on one small lower branch. "See Mom, THIS is how you do and its prreeeettty".

At some point in the decorating Drew decided that it was time to introduce the kids to new memories and cranked the song from the Grinch and then called a break in the tree makeover to watch Charlie Brown's Christmas, one of his childhood memories.  This is what makes us work.  We blend our different childhood memories, I get the first half of the night, he gets the second, and during it we blend in our own.  The tree that is quite obviously decorated by children's hands and one that doesn't bother me enough to fix it.

I had never watched a Charlie Brown Christmas, and I must say it was rather intriguing.

And this one's for my mother-in-law who mentioned to me this week that the kids always look so happy on the blog:)  How DARE mommy take away a glass ornament....

Enjoy your weekend all!