Get Jolly By Golly

It's December 19th.  As of this morning we had not decorated our Christmas tree.  Brian is out of town and I am not in the Christmas spirit.  The very thought of dragging boxes and bins up from the basement to decorate does not excite me.  We have stuff everywhere.  And we'll just be taking it all down in a couple weeks at this point...Plus, I'm tired...more on that later!

But I want the holidays to be special for Kate.  And so I did it anyway.

I brought up our Christmas ornaments and she and I decorated the tree tonight after we got home from work and school.  If we were going to do, it needed to be done, and since Brian has been traveling a lot the last couple of months, we did it by our lonesome.  Next year we will get on the ball with this and decorate together, as a family, a lot sooner than a week before Christmas.  But this year this is how it went.

I need to get jolly by golly.  And that is an understatement.

Our little decorator!

Such a sweetie!

She's got this down!

The final product!

A holiday note: I feel like when this time of year rolls around, it's always really stressful.  Brian and I both come from divorced families so there are a lot of Christmases, coordinating, get togethers, etc. in a short amount of time.  In addition, one half of our families are here in Ohio, while another half are in Maryland and Germany.  It's a real balancing act I tell ya.  We really enjoy seeing our families, so we try to accommodate everyone's schedules.  But it's still stressful.  Add normal day to day things, like, cleaning, cooking, etc, and working and Christmas shopping and this time of year gets really overwhelming.  I think that is why it's harder to get in the Christmas spirit sometimes.

Next year I'm going to try to make a goal to get holiday shopping done by November.  None of this last minute stress.  Perhaps that will help me get in the holiday spirit much sooner and stay in it.  After all, I really want this to be a fun time for Kate.  I know she will enjoy what we can give her, even if it's just a decorated tree, but if we can enjoy it too that would be even better!