Last week we all pitched in to help decorate the house for Christmas! The kids were so cute to watch as we opened each box of decorations! They would see some wall hanging or snow globe and excitedly exclaim "I remember this one! It's my favorite!" It was a very fun night, listening to Christmas Carols, hanging ornaments and talking about what this years' Christmas will bring! We weren't going to decorate since we'll be in California, but changed our minds when we decided to host a Holiday Dinner with our friends as well as have the Relief Society Christmas Enrichment Dinner here! We are all glad we gave in and decorated for the Holidays! There is always a wonderful feeling in the air at Christmas Time!
Adam putting the Angel on top!
Annie and Spencer helped hang ornaments! They are getting quite good at it! I have to say that letting the kids help decorate the tree has been something I have struggled with over the years! It makes me laugh to think of why I'm like that and this year I figured it out! Growing up we would get sooooo excited to help my mom decorate the tree. We would get the tree set up and the next day would plan on helping decorate after school. We would get home and it would all be done. Mom would apologetically tell us she had time and just wanted to get it done! As we got older we realized that she never intended us to help, she had a specific way of decorating and there was no way we were going to mess that up! Finally after pleading with her to let us help she decided we would have two trees. One she could decorate all by herself, in her way and the other would be the kids tree! But, as the season drew near, and the trees went up, the "kids" tree was NEVER decorated by the "kids"! Mom always did it! I must say now that I'm a parent that now I COMPLETELY understand why she didn't want us helping! Broken ornaments, bare patches on the tree, chaos of kids arms reaching all over the tree, etc. I understand it all....but this year, I decided to let it all go and let the kids help! We actually had SOOOOOO much fun and I was able to decorate the tree SOOOOOOO much faster! The kids are getting quite good at finding the right spot for each ornament! I think we may have started a new tradition!
Annie LOVES to wear the Santa hat!
Logan and G were mostly observers but enjoyed seeing the tree all lit up! Logan keeps saying "Christmas Tree" with a lisp! SOOOOOO cute!
Adam putting the Angel on top!
Annie and Spencer helped hang ornaments! They are getting quite good at it! I have to say that letting the kids help decorate the tree has been something I have struggled with over the years! It makes me laugh to think of why I'm like that and this year I figured it out! Growing up we would get sooooo excited to help my mom decorate the tree. We would get the tree set up and the next day would plan on helping decorate after school. We would get home and it would all be done. Mom would apologetically tell us she had time and just wanted to get it done! As we got older we realized that she never intended us to help, she had a specific way of decorating and there was no way we were going to mess that up! Finally after pleading with her to let us help she decided we would have two trees. One she could decorate all by herself, in her way and the other would be the kids tree! But, as the season drew near, and the trees went up, the "kids" tree was NEVER decorated by the "kids"! Mom always did it! I must say now that I'm a parent that now I COMPLETELY understand why she didn't want us helping! Broken ornaments, bare patches on the tree, chaos of kids arms reaching all over the tree, etc. I understand it all....but this year, I decided to let it all go and let the kids help! We actually had SOOOOOO much fun and I was able to decorate the tree SOOOOOOO much faster! The kids are getting quite good at finding the right spot for each ornament! I think we may have started a new tradition!
Annie LOVES to wear the Santa hat!
Logan and G were mostly observers but enjoyed seeing the tree all lit up! Logan keeps saying "Christmas Tree" with a lisp! SOOOOOO cute!
7 comments:
so i love the story about janet not "waiting" for you guys to help decorate. my mom too has 2 trees, one that is for show and 1 that is for us to help decorate. but her story is hilarious!
I would have to say that I have the exact same problem. My sweet children get so excited to help me with the tree and every year I always have it decorated by the time they get home from school. I guess it's the perfectionist in me and the rest of us coming out! This year, however, I did put up a second tree for the kids to decorate in the play room. They had a great time, but they never plug it in or even go up there to enjoy it. Isn't that the way it always goes, but they do get to say that they decorated a tree this year. Tis the season! Love ya. Marc
That's so funny that you are such a perfectionist! Normally I am too, really bad! But for some reason the tree has never bothered me. You can totally tell where Madison decorated because the ornaments are all clumped together. It makes me smile everytime I look at it because she is so proud of her decorating job!
Ryan has always wanted us to do it all together- I think he felt slighted as a child. :) I love decorating the tree although sometimes it is more chaos than not, it's fun. We've taught the children to spread out the ornaments even. I usually fix a couple later- not like my dad who would let us decorate it and then he would redo the whole thing after we went to bed....
Did we grow up in the same house? I have clear memories of helping decorating the tree...not every year and FOR SURE not the living room tree but she would let us help...that's not to say she wouldn't re-do it though. Actually, maybe I have clear memories of WATCHING her do it. I don't know...either way its fun to let your kids help. My kids helped us and we had a clump of ornaments right at their eye level. We had to direct them to move them around.
I'm with Julie, I totally remember decorating the tree. Not "mom's" tree, but the other one. In fact one year after we went and chopped it down Dad help us and insisted on the tinsel. Then the tinsel was not working out the way he wanted so we ended up with the tinsel garland. I remember decorating in the 339 house too!
Heather and Julie, Your memories decieve you or maybe because I'm older mom had changed by the time you guys got older but mom NEVER let us help with the tree. If she did it was for only a few ornaments and then she took over! The Tinsel Tree was when I was in College so that doesn't count. I was an adult by then! :-)
Post a Comment