Deck the Halls.

As of Sunday, we are officially finished decorating for Christmas. (Thank goodness). Decorating for Christmas has never been an after-thought at the Pugh home. I love decorating for the holidays, and I get it naturally. My mom was big into it when I was a child and now I am carrying on the tradition...and I never disappoint. Although things have been a bit different since the boys arrived. When I think about it, that seems a bit backwards, but it's just more difficult to decorate with two wild boys running around the house.
The first step...unload all the boxes from the shed. Boxes you say? Yes, all twelve of them (not including the outdoor decor or the trees). So we unloaded and unpacked. It's fun, and somehow I am always surprised at what I find. I have so much stuff I tend to forget what I have year to year.

Here's Reese unpacking one of the boxes. He was a great help in this area.

Step two...assemble the tree and unwrap all the ornaments. Each year I wrap each ornament in tissue paper so they won't be broken. Some of our ornaments are 20 plus years old, and I'm a little attached (emotionally) to them...so we have to take precautions.
Step three...decorate! I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I prefer to do most of the adorning. (Yes, I am a control freak). I know my boys and my husband have good intentions, but I like it done a certain way. So we let the boys help with the non-meaningful ornaments and we saved the others for Momma to add after bedtime.
Reese would make a great tree decorator if only the ornaments weren't breakable. His thinking..."it looks like a ball, it feels like a ball...it must be a ball. So I am going to treat it like a ball and throw it as hard as I can into the center of the tree. Wow! Mom and Dad must be so proud of me." He actually would take hold of the "ball" with both hands, bend down just like a baseball pitcher and chuck it as hard as he could. And boy does he have an arm! Yikes! I felt like I needed to apologize to the tree once Reese was done.

Step four...the village. I also collect village houses, and set them up each year. I love all the little lights shinning through the windows. The village itself takes about three hours to set up, but it's so worth it.
Step five...Outside. This is Daddy's thing. He is in complete control of what happens outside. This year he had a few helpers. Rylie thought he was the coolest when he got to go help Daddy blow-up the snowman.

Christmas decorating was a success. But there were a few casualties. Brandon dropped and shattered a village house while he was rearranging the light sets. And Rylie shattered the giraffe ornament we bought for him the year he was born. Giraffes are his signature animal and Brandon picked this ornament out on his own as an excited new dad. I cried, but only for a minute. Brandon was probably more disappointed than I was if the truth be told.
At any rate...it's done. And now we are in the spirit for celebrating friends, family, thankfulness and the true reason for the season....Jesus. We are a family who loves our traditions, and we have many of them this time of year from the Christmas tree to favorite books and stories to a nativity game for the boys. (I'll share in more detail about some of our other traditions in future blogs). It truly is the most wonderful time of the year, and all the decorations make it that much better.