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Decorating the Christmas Tree

Last night we decorated our Christmas tree.  As we did it, I thought to myself that this is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  I love to make lists so here is a list of the reasons it's one of my favorites:

1.  We have a set time.  We do it the first Monday night in December.  That's the date we decided worked the best. Monday night is Family Night so we already have that time open when everyone is there.  When anyone wants to put up the Christmas decorations early, I have a date to tell them.  I don't feel conflicted about putting it up earlier because that's the day.  And personally, I think that Christmas should not start taking over the month of November too.


2.  We have a fake tree.  This makes putting up our Christmas tree so much quicker.  If you have to go buy a tree, you've already doubled the amount of time it takes to put it up and decorate it.  I admit, real trees are lovely and nicer than fake trees.  Some of them have a nice smell and I miss that.  But they also die quickly if you don't water them diligently (another job to do) and I worry about them as a fire hazard.  Definitely a trade-off and I'm voting for the fake tree for the sake of simplicity.  We bought ours probably 11 years ago and it is still looking good.

3.  I'm not picky about what where the decorations get put on the tree.  We have some ornaments I don't love as much as others and I wouldn't mind if the tree looked a tiny bit professional.  But the kids enjoy putting the ornaments on the tree and how can I interfere with that?

See the flags in the background?  That helps me feel a little connection to our two missionaries whom I miss on these occasions when I want everyone to be there.
4.  It gets done in an hour or less.  I even made gingerbread and whipped cream (another tradition) while everyone else put together the tree and put on the lights and ornaments.  We have a few other decorations for the rest of the house and a few outside things and that got done too.  How can I complain about that?  Well, my husband did bring everything up from the basement on Saturday so that helped it go faster.  And, OK, I didn't love where my husband put our few meager outside lights so I'm going to have to change that sometime...

This is a once-a-year treat although I'm not really sure why.  Maybe it's the only time it occurs to me to make it?

5. We play Christmas music while we do it.  We have a CD from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that I really love called "Spirit of the Season".  That just automatically puts me in the Christmas spirit.  I frequently don't remember to put Christmas music on but for decorating the tree, we always do.

6.  No one fights!  It's amazing.  I guess it's because there are enough ornaments that everyone can hang to their heart's content.  We actually run out of space to hang them.


I REALLY want this Christmas season to be less stressful and more enjoyable.  This was a good start.

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