We had Mr. B, J, K4's bff, and That Man and I on tree decorating duty. K1 and K3 bailed on us to go play some game or something. K3 has ornaments to put on when he gets home - you're not allowed to not put ornaments on the tree if you live inside of this house - house rules. Queue up some Vince Guaraldi Trio from Charlie Brown, some eggnog (no spike - boo), and a whole lot of fun and that was our night. We had some light issues. You can't see that part. And yes, we do have bush lights on our tree.
That's because two years ago, we sent the teenagers to the store to get more lights for the tree. They bought bush lights on accident. Instead of sending them back out, we just went with it... And, believe it or not, they actually work really, really well. There's no wrapping the lights around the tree, just stretch them out and drape them over and... viola! Of course, after adjusting the tree to cover the dead light sections, we found a brand new bag of bush lights someone gave us last Christmas as a joke gift. Too late, but I'll make sure to put them on top of the bin for next year.
Many of these ornaments came from my parent's house. Remember when most of our stuff ended up ruined last year due to a freakish leak that filled my decoration bin with mold? Yeah. You can see the many decorations on there - and we split their decorations between the five of us. I guess fifty years of marriage accumulates that kind of stuff, though they did pass down stuff to each of us as we moved out, just as I've done for our kids. We did replace a lot of them last year though, so not everything came from there.
You can't see the button garland in this pic. The button garland is this hideous string of buttons and bling that my mom received from a friend the Christmas before she died. She used it on her Ugly Sweater for our party that year, and won, and then she left it here. She disliked it immensely. I put it on a tree as a whimsical reminder of her. She laughed at me for doing that, and then I found more in her basement... I think she'd appreciate it!
It was rough though - pulling out these ornaments from my childhood, or ones that I knew Mom really adored. My folks would have been here tonight - helping and watching the chaos. I don't think they missed many of our tree decorating nights. They enjoyed hanging out, but I'm sure they enjoyed going home to their quiet house even more. Ha! Especially when all four where home and younger.
I don't know if missing them gets easier or just different. Time makes things different, but you never stop missing them like crazy. You just miss them differently.
Anyway... We're getting there with the Christmas stuff.
Still have ALL of the shopping to do, but I have a list and it will get done.
That's all for now!
Behave!
