Friday 4 December 2009

Deck the halls

Once I moved out of the parental establishment and got a place of my own something very important happened in my social calendar. I got to choose when the decorations went up! Oh yes, no more waiting until "a bit nearer Christmas" before the boxes of magic were brought down from the attic; as far as I'm concerned the first week in December is perfect timing. Now I have a small boy to share in my fever pitch of excitement and I pretend that we put them up "for him", but we all know better don't we?

Rather like an early Christmas Day, there's always wonderful surprises waiting to be unwrapped in the decorations box - those little treasures we forget about from year to year delight us over and over. Even the cats like to get in on the action, sniffing and pawing with excitement as they remember how much fun it is to bash balls on Christmas trees.

We pulled out tinsel and baubles, we plumped up the tree, I did the high branches, he did the low. It was dark so we decorated by the lights from the tree (which was actually a little tricky to see what you were doing, but small boy insisted). Some of the decorations aren't quite 'crisp and even', but I don't have the heart to rearrange his careful positioning!

Festive songs provided our soundtrack - a little bit of Cliff, Shakey, Slade bringing back the memories. Then, as Roy Wood sang his heart out and swang his beard around, a little voice piped up "I wish it could be Christmas every day too..."

Perfect!

12 comments:

  1. I'm with you. When I was growing up we didn't decorate until a week or two before Christmas. At my house the decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving!

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  2. Putting mine up this weekend, I used to have to wait too!

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  3. Me TOO! I am crossing my fingers we will get our tree tomorrow. I'm ready!

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  4. You are reminding me of the good old days when there was Santa and presents and cookies baking and company coming...ahh...the good old days.
    GOOD RIDDANCE!
    I'm happy I no longer am employed by Santa.
    The decorating was always fun tho...
    And the cookies...
    Nah, the tasted good, but they weren't fun
    xox, Lisa

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  5. It is great to decide when we want to get our holiday traditions going. I also like deciding which ones I want to keep and which traditions to pass on. Your tree looks lovely. I don't have my decorations up. I have a super busy weekend so it may not be for another week. I remember hating to wait when I was a kid.

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  6. We got our tree today. turns out we can't find all the lights so its run to the store tomorrow before the decorating can begin. I'll be putting on great music to set the mood and then enjoy myself while decorating. Will be thinking of you.

    Kate

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  7. It is fun to call the shots, isn't it? Your tree looks lovely! I remember the days of putting up decorations with a small boy. The tree would be quite heavy on the bottom with all of his favorite ornaments. But it wouldn't do to move them to a more "balanced" location! (Unless he was asleep haha) And we had quite a few that he made in school. Come to think of it, we still put some of those up!

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  8. "those little treasures we forget about from year to year delight us over and over."

    That is so true. I never even thought of it that way until you made the comment.

    Happy Christmas. :)

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  9. We've been a little too premature this year and our real tree is already starting to droop from all the heating not sure it will last another 3 weeks but it does look lovely and the kids had a ball helping to decorate!

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  10. We always had to wait til a week or two before Christmas, and I too love being the one to decide when Christmas begins! We also NEVER had outdoor lights; "Too tacky" and I really enjoy lighting it all up!
    Happy Holidays!

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  11. I stopped having a real tree years ago. I miss that wonderful pine aroma when you walk in the room, but my cats had a habit of gathering as many pine needles as possible in their fur and then depositing them all over the house!

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  12. Lisa...I'm adding you to my sidebar for the write-up on Sole Monkey. Thank you! :)

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Thank you for your comments - I always love to hear what you think :)

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