A tree half-full

Today I began to dismantle the holly jolly-ness and it feels so good to put this crap away.

Little Guy managed to break tons of the stuff on my vintage tree, and I kept moving the ornaments up so that by the end of it only the top part of the tree was decorated. A tree half-full or a tree half-empty, either way there was no way to put a positive spin on the tree situation. It ended up looking looking janky. I don't know why I was so stubborn about putting it up in the first place. Really I knew better.

Maybe next year I'll put up the giant sparkly beacon of temptation again.

Maybe next year he'll leave it alone.

Either that or I'll duct tape him to the couch until New Year's.

Lucky Christmas

We were up before the sun yesterday tearing through packages.

I couldn't help thinking of the people who are struggling this year. There are so many without jobs. One of my friends has been out of work since April and another since this summer. And the ones I know are probably the fortunate - they have friends and families and savings accounts, a support system.

Still, I know how stressful it can be. Hubs was out of work for almost five months when Girlie was a baby. I quit working before she was born and we had to live on our savings. He got a job in November, just before Thanksgiving. It was close, but he had a paycheck by Christmas.

This Christmas we didn't go overboard and I had a budget that I almost stuck to, but I can't let the holiday pass without acknowledging that we are so incredibly lucky.

3 days and counting

Yesterday, I opened the back door and yelled,

"You two better stop fighting or I'm calling Santa!"

Oh, yes I did.

Hung by the chimney with care

I started decking the halls yesterday. Every year as I hang Little Guy's stocking, the felty snowman one, I think about how close we came to only having one child. When I was pregnant with Girlie, I picked out the Santa stocking from the Martha Stewart collection. I decided to pick up the snowman so we'd have a matching set for our second child.

After Girlie was born, I was certain I wouldn't have another baby. It wasn't the pregnancy or the birth, I had a pretty easy time with both. But taking care of a baby and raising a little person was completely overwhelming. And what a shock that was. I had been, up until that point, a multitasking overachiever. I don't think I had really ever experienced overwhelmed. But there I was. So I told Hubs, really, this was great, but we're not doing it again. And for five years I stuck to it.

But still, I held on to the extra stocking tucking it into the box where we store our holiday stuff. I didn't think we'd ever use it, but I didn't get rid of it either. Then, after five years and a huge change of heart, Little Guy was born and the snowman stocking finally found a purpose.