At Last! Tree Trimming Today!

Well after almost a week of "Mom, when are we going to decorate the treeeee?" today we did it. Everything about this year is new and different for me, yet we continue to blaze the trail and find new ways to do things, new ways to celebrate, and new ideas to make it through a very different place than we were in last year. This is the first Christmas we have been through without Daddy-"Gaga" to the boys. I would have expected it to be quite hard, and although we have each had some sad moments, it has been much easier so far than I expected. Of course, having a series of bugs has helped to keep us distracted, but keeping my spirits up under those conditions is quite a miracle in itself!



I really wanted tree trimming to be this cozy, comforting traditional event, but with Josh being sick, and me not being able to tame the house yet, tonight we just did it. Yes, I missed the "traditional" after-trimming cocoa, cookies, and a holiday movie, but we are trying to get well, and by the time we were done it was bedtime. So, we break up the "tradition" and do some of that other stuff tomorrow night. Who will ever know? (Except the hundreds of people who read it here?)




The one really fun thing I was able to do this year that was different was to totally release the decorating into the hands of the boys. Yep! I didn't open a single box of ornaments, and except for a few that I hung on the really high branches, the boys did all of the hanging. It was really fun watching them get excited over this ornament or that one. I even let Josh take some photos so we would actually have Mom in a few. I kind of wished afterward that I had put on a little makeup and such, but then again, there weren't too many face shots. (Typical boy, he had more fun trying to take shots of my back end!) So even though Josh was still not feeling well, and even though it is almost two weeks since Thanksgiving, we have gotten the tree done, and we had a fun time doing it. Now, for the rest of the house . . . .