My mother is big into decorating for Christmas...scratch that...My mother is big into decorating. She loves to put out her little knick knacks that go along with the season or the holiday. She loves to have painted walls and just loves to decorate. I'm not so sure if I have inherited this sense of decorating or not. Sure, I love to have painted walls, but I'm not too much of a faux finish kind of gal. Give me a dark red anyday or a great khaki color and we'll be good. So anyway, when it comes to Christmas decorating my mother starts the day after Thanksgiving. It is a process. First of all dad knows that he better not plan anything for the day after Thanksgiving because he is going to be needed for the process. Everything comes down from the attic and into the spare bedroom. Then the tree goes up. I have never had a "real" Christmas tree while growing up and only once did I have one (thanks to my roommate Casey in college) at all. Mom starts unpacking the boxes of knick knacks and goodies while dad assembles the tree. My father is a VERY organized man and so he has the tree down to a science. The base goes first, then fluff some of the branches and begin to weave the lights up and down every branch. This takes a good chunk of the day, but let me tell you it's the best Christmas tree on the block, hands down. Then after the tree is up dad works on the outside lights and decorations, usually the next day or sometimes the next weekend. The nativity goes up and lights on the soffits, sometimes there are soldiers guarding the garage and there is always garland on the porch. My parents are good decorators for Christmas. They enjoy the process...well, maybe not as much any more but they still do it and it looks good.
I do not enjoy the process as much as they seem to. We are living in someone else's home for the year (as you all know) and we are able to use all of their decorations. This house is huge and there are boxes of decorations marked for almost every room individually. Needless to say, I did not get out all of their deocrations. I didn't even get out all of our decorations. But I did get out some. And Greg and I put up the 10ft Christmas tree. That's right ten feet of piny goodness. It took us about 5 hours to get this accomplished and now that it's done I am glad. It took almost all of our ornaments to cover the tree and I didn't even put any on the back side. Normally you would work from the bottom of the tree to the top but with the enormity of this trees size we decided to work from the top to the bottom. It seemed to work pretty well. It was fun crawling around on the floor trying to get lights on the bottom row of branches. I was thinking about putting garland on the porch but I just don't have time or the desire to do so. Maybe I should call my mom and see if she would like to come and help me. Wait, she's busy, oh well maybe next time. So we've got some knick knacks and a 10ft tree so I think we're set for the year. The one part I REALLY HATE!!!!???? putting it all away. Here's some pictures from our tree adventure! Hope you like them. What are your family Christmas tree/decorating traditions?
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