It’s only November 17th, a few traditions were broken today in my house...but how could I say no? The Christmas Tree went up today. Lights on, decorations hung, star lit.
They’ve been asking for a couple of weeks now, I think I did a stellar job of making a million excuses about why we needed to wait to decorate for Christmas. “It’s not even Halloween yet.” “We don’t want to confuse Santa.” “Umm...your room is too messy.” “It’s against the law to turn on Christmas lights too early.” I gave in today, and did the unthinkable, or at least the unthinkable in my book....I bought a fake tree. I’m going to refer to it as a “prefabricated evergreen” just to make myself feel a little better about this decision. Never in my life have I had a prefabricated evergreen for Christmas, although I do distinctly remember begging my mom for one when I was little, mostly because I was positive we consistently picked the prickliest tree that shed the most needles every year that I continued to feel in the bottom of my feet months after Christmas. My mom always stayed strong though, always a naturally fabricated evergreen. I convinced myself that a prefabricated evergreen would allow for quicker set up, less clean up, and fewer puncture wounds to the bottoms of my feet....JUSTIFIED! If done right, I may not even need to remove lights or decorations, just find some muscles to carry it to the basement for me. We shall see!
Once the prefabricated evergreen was assembled by the adult that instructions indicated was required, Ben and Presley were dragging boxes out of my closet full of decorations. I sat back and watched them unwrap every ornament with the same kind of excitement that they open Santa’s gifts with. They liked hearing stories about the ornaments they had previously made or the ornaments that were given to our family on their first Christmas. As they ran through the house with decorations, and so independently hung them on the tree I was sadly reminded of how little time I have left with believers of Santa in my life.
If I’m lucky I’ll have two more years. Two more years to use Santa as a behavior management tool, two more years of convincing them that Santa enjoys pizza rolls and Captain Morgan rather than cookies and milk, two more years of making reindeer food, and two more years of waking up to two excited kids screaming about the things Santa left under the tree. Two more years....maybe.
So how could I say no to setting up the tree a tad early? I couldn’t. I want to hold onto this forever. So, the stockings are hung, the tree is decorated from kid arm’s reach and lower, and the colorful lights are on...because they wanted it.
