Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Decorating the Tree

Sunday night we got around to decorating for Christmas. Do you have any weird customs surrounding the decorating process?  Well, we sure do.

For years and years and years now Mike has played John Denver and the Muppets singing Christmas Carols as we decorate. Yes, it is weird. It suits us, though.

This year we had two new players participating. Laura, our friend-that-is-like-family came over. It turns out she is just as weird as the rest of us so she joined right in. We also had the pleasure of welcoming Alaysha, Sam's girlfriend, to the chaos. She, too, didn't flinch at all the weirdness.

Our living room is not large so picture three dogs there first of all. Bumblebee recently had surgery and was wearing one of those charming cones to keep her from licking her wound open. So, there were three largish dogs barking and wrestling and doing what dogs do. Add two adorable little chatty girls to the mix.  They were loving hanging things on the tree. We did not guide them and I have left it as they did it. We have some areas very, very well decorated and one big area with no ornaments at all. I think it looks good that way.

Sam and Ben were always famous for hanging one or two ornaments and then watching as big sister, Maria, did the rest of the work. That really hasn't changed much, I suppose. Sam did announce that he'd hung 5 ornaments before he gave out. Ben didn't hang any at all, but that was maybe because he is living out on the East Coast. We miss him. Instead of going all gloomy over the absence of Ben and Sara, I'm just looking forward to the next time we can be together.

I recruited Eric to help take photos so we could always remember our goofy decorating adventure. At the end of it all we sat around in the dark, enjoying the Christmas lights. I snuggled with little granddaughters and felt such gratitude for a life so full.

I used to dream of decorating our tree and house with a lot of fancy, matching decorations. I'm over that. In the end, our house doesn't really look much like the photos we see in the magazines. I just don't care about that. We have an angel on top of our tree that is made out of a plastic cup. Her head is now held on with tape. Sam made her in preschool and we think she is perfect! Many of the ornaments on our tree come with stories or memories from the people who gave us the ornaments. I love that! I'll tell you about some of those as the days go by. For now, I just want to share the photos from Sunday night.






















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