decorating

I find analogies to be helpful. How about you?

Try this one on for size.

Darla is to fish:

As my kids are to Christmas decorations:

The Christmas season has barely started and this pile is looking like the place Christmas decorations go to die. Except this stash of decor has seen their unfortunate end by the hands of my children.

Honestly, it’s bad enough that I suspect my Hubby has left several bins in attic and is pretending “No, Honey, that’s it. We don’t have any more Christmas decorations up here.” He’s a sneaky one. I think he skims off the top every year so that I don’t suspect how much Christmas cheer he is leaving in our dark, cold attic. If I wasn’t afraid that seventeen bins full of kids clothes and toys would fall on me and I would be trapped in the attic forever, I would totally go upstairs and sort through the bins myself. That’s a lie—that attic is a deathtrap. I’ll just buy more décor at the after season sales.

Back to Santa’s destructive elves, yes we put the fancy decorations up high and the bottom half of the tree is empty (saddest tree ever), but somehow they have gotten their hands on a few too many ornaments and a singing bear. Now they are goners. Maybe it was the fact that we left the Christmas bins lying around for four days. Questionable Choices in Parenting? OK, you got me, but in my defense I was really tired after laying the foundation for the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.

Listen, I get it, kids break stuff, a lot, but dang when does the destruction end? How long before I can bring my prized Pottery Barn Reindeer Dishes out of storage without fear of my Rudolf cookie serving plate being smashed to smithereens? Oh yeah, that was a BK (before kids) purchase. When can my tree live up to its full potential and actually hold ornaments all the way to the bottom branches?

Really, I could get really frustrated and lose it because my kids keep breaking my Christmas crap, or I could use this as a life lesson. Yes, I choose the lesson because I choose to just go shopping to replace everything with kid friendly and even more fabulous Christmas style. Yes, friends, I choose the life lesson.

Cripes, I have actually lost Mimi while I was writing. Oh wait here she is:

Let’s start with a visual.

This is my husband’s idea of Christmas decorating:

And here is mine:

Before we had kids, he would totally indulge in my Christmas decorating extravagance. He thought it was cute and charming, and was willing to dangle from the roof to hang twinkle lights for me. The man even let me put up a hot pink and lime green tree in his house. Now that is love.

Since Monkey and Mimi have come along, and our house slowly morphed into Toys R’ Us, the hubby’s patience has worn thin with my love of all things Christmas and my excessive need to show holiday joy through lights, glitter, and tinsel. *cough, cough* Ebenezer Scrooge, anyone?

Since marriage is all about compromise (sham), we have a new tradition, the “Christmas Bargaining”. Here is why this went down, last year I made the whole family drive out to a tree farm where we dragged a newborn Mimi and an exhausted Monkey through fields of trees. I read somewhere that huge Husky dogs would happily carry your tree to your car. Amazing, right? Imagine the holiday cheer! We needed to do this! The only thing is that you cut down your own tree….I sorta left that part out when telling Hubby we NEEDED to do this.

As always, he was the doting husband, and we arrived at the tree farm where we quickly learned that the Husky dogs were taking a break and we (and by we, I mean Hubby) would have to cut down the tree, drag it back several hundred yards to our car, and attach it to our roof—-All. By. Himself. Hilarity did not ensue, he was not thrilled with this idea, and some may say, he even turned a shade that resembled the Grinch. But I had two babies, a video camera, and my best Christmas face on. Who could ever say no to that sweet image? Not that adorable boy I married so long ago J

Long story even longer, shit hit the Christmas fan and I was banned from ever suggesting such a ridiculous idea when all I was willing to do was sit in the car and feed Goldfish to the kids.

So this year I agreed to getting the tree from the place that all you do is point and pay and they do the rest. And my hubby agreed to this: