The Drip, Drip, Drip of Christmas

In a normal year Christmas throws up at our house the weekend after Thanksgiving. It is an all out assault. 46 hinged crates come down from the attic all at once. The tree is assembled with lots of swearing. Non-Christmas decorative items get packed away in the attic to make room for the glass village, snowmen display, various Santa’s and general holiday cheer. I work fourteen plus hours those days to get it all done. It is exhausting, but needs to be completed to make room for the entertaining preparations for the no less than six events we hold at our house in the month of December.

This year I am really enjoying doing the Christmas decorating bit-by-bit. The tree was up last weekend. With the new tree we have new tree technology, mainly in the remote control for the lights. Russ got his hands on the remote and discovered that with the press of a button he can change my tasteful white lights to multi-colored lights. He declared that the colors are pure “northeast Philly.” So we have been toggling the colors on and off to feel like we are traveling, while still staying home. For the record I don’t ever need to go to northeast Philly.

Yesterday I spent a leisurely two hours putting up the needlepoint garland. I was exhausted after doing it and couldn’t imagine doing more decorating after I finished, like I do in a regular year.

So now I am enjoying a few days revisiting all my needlepointing before I move on to the rest of the house decorations. After I am done there will be no parties to cook for, no guests to have over, just Russ and I wandering the house sitting in rooms we usually don’t even use just so we can enjoy the Christmas decorations.

It’s a different year, but honestly it is an easier year. I don’t think I can convince Russ to let me put Christmas up before Thanksgiving normally and certainly Carter would object. For now I am just going to revel in the shiny and bright.