Undeck the Halls

We were going to have a new family tradition, one that I remembered my own family had when I was growing up. After Thanksgiving the Fall decorations were taken down, put away and all of the Christmas decorations were pulled from their year long storage and Christmas slowly made it’s way through the house. Christmas music played in the background, cookies made together that day were served along with hot apple cider and the whole family gathered around the Christmas tree hanging ornaments from the years past. It was one of my favorite moments of the Christmas season and I so wanted to recreate that for my own little family.






Thanksgiving came and went and it was time for Christmas to take it’s place but it wasn’t as idealistic in reality as it was in my little family fantasy world. I took down the Fall decorations and pulled out Christmas decorations to the delight of one curious little boy while Dustin, who had been out Black Friday shopping the night before, caught a few extra hours of sleep. And in anticipation I put up the tree. Dustin would hang the lights and as a family we would hang the ornaments. 

 
The time finally arrived when as a family we would decorate but the tables had been turned so to speak. We had no cookies or hot apple cider, in my excitement to decorate I hadn’t purchased a thing. Our background music was not Christmas tunes but the sound of a now unhappy Reid loudly stating his discontent and as we hung ornaments a curious little boy was just as intent on taking them down. This was after his parents solved their disagreement of where the ornaments should go. One felt the color balls should be arranged just so while the other didn’t think it mattered. If you know us at all, you know who is who. 

 
It wasn’t the idyllic picture I had envisioned but it was a realistic Christmas decorating event for two tired parents, a busy fifteen month old and a still needy three month old. There were still moments of awe on Everett’s part as his little mind tried to figure it all out. He was just three months old during his first Christmas so it was all a new experience for him.

 


Eventually the tree was fully decorated, the stockings were hung on the bookshelf and the nativity scenes were set, one of them with a wise man who wandered a little too far and as yet to turn up.
 
 


All that mattered is that Everett enjoyed it, Dustin and I survived it, Reid eventually grew happy again and our home is, for now, decorated for the Christmas season.