Annabel has been agitating to put up Christmas decorations ever since we saw our first Christmas tree at the mall. A few days before Thanksgiving, my dad came over and helped me pull all the lights and decorations out of the garage. While he hung the lights (he still isn’t wild about me going on the roof), I set up our artificial tree. I let Annie hang the stockings and a couple ornaments, but then she had to a) wait for daddy to be home, and b) wait for Daddy to be home after Thanksgiving, because in our house we respect the turkey, damn it!

little decorating mermaid
She was also wearing a mermaid dress, because why not?

Yesterday I realized that I couldn’t hold her off from decorating anymore. She’s so desperate to make the house festive, and even though I want to include Mike, he doesn’t get home until an hour before bedtime and we have a lot of things to jam into that hour. So I laid out a bunch of decorations and ornaments, and let her go to town.

ready!

I have several boxes of decorations, but I’m feeling somewhat ambivalent about putting everything up this year. Maybe it’s because it’s a short Christmas season, so I know I’m going to have to pull it all down in less than a month (and I’ll hear how very unhappy someone is about that, too).

ornament hanging

Or maybe I’m just like everyone else out there, exhausted.

hanging ornaments

I’m also trying to figure out how to keep Mike included in things while still letting Annie and James go about their days. I feel bad that he is missing out on little moments, so I send him about 1,000 photos a videos a day. I’m also putting aside little things for him.

adding the star

The star was right in his wheelhouse.

I’ve decided Annie and I will decorate a little bit every day. That will give her a daily activity, and it will keep me from going crazy (in more ways than one).