I Caved

Initially, I wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas. Actually, I wanted to wait until it was really DECEMBER. That, however didn't happen. See, our Thankful project only came with 24 leaves... which brought us til today. The store had no more. We have a packed day tomorrow, my husband is working Friday, I have a photo shoot on Saturday, church on Sunday followed by the Christmas thing at the zoo, prayer meeting Monday, church on Tuesday... photos to edit, the house to go look at, weddings to shoot, etc., etc..... I could go on and on. At that rate, we wouldn't really get around to putting up our stuff until right before Christmas. Which, I know some people who do that. I, however, really like to look at the pretty stuff.

So, thinking that it wouldn't get done soon because of our crazy schedule, I figured we'd break it out today. Thank you, Jessica and Bonnie for starting a crazy pregnant woman on a decorating spree today. I'm sure my husband will appreciate not having to do anything.

Here's what Audrey, Tony and I got into today:

This is our lovely window bench. It's the only storage in our house really. And it's handy. This is where all of our Christmas stuff is held in the off season.

It all fits nicely in there.

This is "Snow." That's what Audrey named him. He sits where the Fall pumpkin sat.

This is my giant bell... yes, it really has a little noise maker inside. I tried really hard not to let my noise maker know because that would lead to a lot of... well, noise.

That's my lop sided wreath. It's always been a little wonky. I'm not sure why. I'm gonna rotate it tomorrow. The little box up top actually opens to stick stuff in. Don't worry, no keys will go in there. I figured that'd be the first place people would look.

Here's my little angel with our trees. She has one, and I have one. She has one so she doesn't tear mine apart. And we do fake. Our allergies are too much to do real ones. The little one to the left that Auds inherited was my husband's and my first tree. We had it before we were even married. It stayed in my apartment when we were dating (we lived around the corner from each other) and he helped me pick out ornaments and decorate it. That's all we could afford at the time. We got the bigger one when we were first married, but couldn't part with the smaller one. We figured we'd make that the kiddie tree so that they could have their own. And that's where we are now.

Here is her tree decorated. All of the ornaments are plastic and from the Dollar Tree. They're probably loaded with lead and harmful chemicals, but I can't see spending a fortune on ornaments that are gonna get ripped off the tree and tossed around right now. As long as she keeps them out of her mouth, she'll be okay, right? At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Here she is checking it out. I made a point to decorate hers first so I could decorate mine without it getting trashed. We went over and over "This is Audrey's tree. These are for Audrey hands. The red ornaments are for baby hands."

She actually got the concept and would say "These for baby hands" before ripping them off the tree. At least they were her ornaments.

She has her good ornaments at the top of the tree where she can't reach them.

It took her a little while longer to grasp the concept that the rest of the ornaments were not for "baby hands." I wouldn't make such a big deal, except the ornaments for the big tree are glass. Glass ornaments in little hands = not a good combination. But, like a good mommy, I had to take a picture first.

So, I started holding the boxes of glass ornaments. And I looked behind me to find that she had taken all of the stockings out of the stocking bin, placed the bin on top of the window seat, climbed inside and started dancing. Again, I took a picture before getting her out. That bin is actually from my freshman year in college, that's why it has my name on it in paint marker. I never throw anything away.

Here is the big tree. It's top heavy, but that was to avoid "baby hands" from getting everything. Some of the ornaments I made, most of them are from when my husband and I were dating (those bows are at least 5 years old) and the little figurines were given to me by a friend of the family. At the end of the season, they had a few Christmas ornaments that didn't sell in their boutique. They didn't feel like stocking them in the back, so they gave them to me. Not a bad deal. Granted there's duplicates, but as long as they're on different sides of the tree, no one notices.

And once I took the bin away, this is what Audrey was up to. Balls everywhere. But they don't shatter, so I'm really not that upset. I figured it would be too hard for her to resist pretty shiny ornaments, so by giving her something of her very own, she wouldn't destroy my tree. And it gets her into the idea of decorating her own tree and having the designated kid tree.

Here the trees are side by side. I'm no Martha, but it doesn't look half bad considering the last time I bought ornaments was as a newlywed. I think it'd be sweet to hold on to them and when I'm old a grey be able to tell my grandchildren that I bought those ornaments when I was only dating their granddaddy.

Yes, I'm totally giving away what colors we bleed in this household. My grandmother bought these for me for a few years before a big storm hit and she was diagnosed with cancer. Even though they'll never make it onto my tree, I still have to display them. These are next to the tv this year.

I even updated my candle and candle topper on the opposite side of the tv. My house smells yummy right now.

I swapped out the pumpkins and acorns for candy canes that I had lying around. They didn't have any Christmas-y equivalent at the Dollar Tree, so candy canes it was.

I don't love them, but I don't hate them and I can't think of anything else to do right now, so they stay.

There's more yet to be done. We're going to take down our leaves and hang our stockings and advent calendar from the twine. We used to hang them with heavy stocking hangers from the top of the entertainment center. However, someone likes to close the doors a little too vigorously and I can see a horrible accident happening. I have a really cute idea for the advent calendar, too. I'm excited and hope it actually turns out as cute as it is looking in my head. There's also a little sign that I have yet to find a place to hang.

But, there it is, my holiday decorating for the most part.