Decorating for Christmas

I look forward to decorating for Christmas all. year. long.  I HAVE to wait until after Thanksgiving to officially start, and will not allow any Christmas music or movies to be played until this time, too.  I suppose I like the build up and then BAM!  November 26th and its ON!  Christmas TIME! 

Well… this year, so far, has been a bit bah humbug.  Despite Gage’s pleas to make Christmas cookies and to start decorating on the 26th, I had to put it off until I was in the right mood.  Illness and messes and other distractions made thinking about transitioning into Christmas-time hard.  Bless his little heart – Gage was bummed.  So, Friday night, I prayed about it and thankfully felt good enough to start decorating on Saturday.  But something told me Scrooge may try to hinder our jolly-good time.  

Gage eagerly helped me bring up the box of garland and carefully hang it in the exact way we do it every year… 

… only to realize that 2 out of the 4 strands of lights were burnt out.  Score one for Scrooge. 

Kaden helped by climbing the stairs over and over again, and then needing to be rescued from the top.  He LOVES this game. 

Then we brought up the ‘treasures’ I have stored in my hope-chest.  I don’t have much in the way of Christmas decorations because my home decor is a bit Christmasy as it is – greens, browns and creams, and even a few red accents.  But we do have the same ‘ol same ‘ol we get out each year and to my pleasant surprise, Gage remembered exactly where each little figurine went…  

… except for this one.  He handed me the box and said “What’s this one, Mama?”  “Oh, Gagers. That one is very special,” I replied, as I started opening the lid. “This is a Snow Baby and it was your great-grammie’s.  She had a whole collection of them and this one is …”  I trailed off as I pulled it out… “broken.” I finished.  The little fishing pole broke off. Sigh.  Score two for Scrooge. 

Determined to power through and enjoy the experience I got out the little Swedish Star Chime.  And I watched and observed as Gage tried to assemble it, just as I did when I was a little girl.  I knew what he was thinking – looking back and forth between the dainty gold pieces and the picture.  Knowing it was like a puzzle, knowing he could figure it out… but couldn’t resist the urge to ask for my help several times.  I encouraged him to do it and retreated to get the final few pieces of decorations from the basement. 

And when I returned, I found this…

HA!  Score one for the jolly-good timers!

And then, Cooper woke up.  Oiy.  He’s not been feeling well and adding him to our festivities made things interesting.  We’d saved the nativity scene for last, so that he could help, but he really wanted no part in placing the wise men with baby Jesus. 

So, he did this… 

… and this…

… and then threw up, ALL over me.  Score three for Scrooge. 

BUT!  The Christmas Spirit lives on… my wonderful husband fixed the lights on the garland, I still love my Snow Baby, broken fishing pole and all (and my wonderful husband could probably fix that as well) and Cooper felt much better after unleashing his innards onto me.  So, there, Scrooge. 

I am SO determined to make this a festive, Jesus-focused, happy, enjoyable, warm and cozy time for my kiddos… we may be off to kind of a rocky start, but we’ll get there.  Next up, the Christmas Tree!