Bring it on!

I'm taking a new approach to the whole Christmas preparation thing this year. Hey, American Thanksgiving has passed -- I'm officially allowed to indulge in my Christmas addiction now!

Last weekend, I took advantage of a day of above-zero temperatures to hang the Christmas lights (and do a last minute raking and backyard poop scooping. What, you don't count poop-scooping as holiday prep? It's a gift to my springtime self!)

This weekend, I hauled out one of my favourite Christmas CDs, and put a pretty good dent in my Christmas shopping.

Previously, I'd haul out all the decorations for the house and the tree for an intense and exhausting day of holiday overkill, but this year I've decided to take a "ten minutes is enough time to hang two decorations" approach. (I have a niggling suspicion this will leave me with a half-decorated house come Christmas Eve. We'll see.)

Which leads me to the point of this somewhat verbose introduction - my first contribution to the Winter Holiday of Your Choice Blog Extravaganza! Look, not only did I manage to put up decorations, but I remembered to take pictures of them!

This is the first decoration I hung up. I made it about five years ago, in the days when I could spend an entire weekend playing with my jig saw and paints and bits of crafty stuff and not worry about a preschooler tugging on my arm every eleven minutes. The snowmen used to hang independently around the house, but I bought the fake bough a couple of years ago and they make a nice quartet. They hang on a landing half way up the stairs, and the boys like to say goodnight to them as we pass them on the way up to bed each night.

And this one is a treat I bought myself on our blissful apple-picking adventure back in September. It was hanging in a shop window in Merrickville and caught my eye as we wandered past. Beloved herded the kids for a few mintues while I ran in to buy it - as soon as I saw it I had to have it. (Okay, so it turns out I'm not so good with delayed gratification after all.)



Last night, we went to our first Christmas party of the season. (Thanks, Bren!) It was with the same group of women (and men) I've mentioned before, and I simply do not see enough of them so it really was a fun evening. My only complaint is that our kids are *almost* of an age where we can leave them unsupervised - but not quite. Although I would have loved to sit in one place for more than three minutes and chat with my dear friends, I mostly ran around the house chasing Simon out of mischief and trying to convince him to eat bits of meatball and cheese cubes on the run.

Shopping, Christmas decorations and music, and even a party - can a weekend get any better than that?

Categories: HolidayBlogExtravaganza