We got our Christmas tree this past Saturday and then on Sunday we put it up and decorated it.
We have a Christmas tree decorating tradition where my parents come up to the house to help. We have a fire in the fireplace and play Christmas music. Then we usually eat pizza and have dessert after the tree is decorated. This is our seventh Christmas in our house, and the seventh year we have done this.
I know, it sounds pretty perfect.
Just as perfect as this picture I snapped while the kids and my dad were putting ornaments on the tree:
It was so cute that I just had to put it on Facebook.
And someone commented, “Is that really your family? It’s picture perfect.”
Yes, it was this picture perfect.
For about 2.3 seconds.
The other 59 minutes and 57.7 seconds were mostly completely picture imperfect.
There was pushing and shoving.
There was fighting over who got to put up which ornament and whose ornament was whose.
There were enough broken ornaments that after the second one we realized it was really stupid to put the dustpan and broom away until, well, January.
There was plenty of name calling. Number 7 called more than one person a dumb butthole. Several times.
There was crying and yelling and blaming and arguing and more crying.
But there were also those 2.3 picture perfect seconds.
And while they were only a small fraction of the entire night, those are the ones I’m going to remember, and cherish, forever.
Susie, I only have 2 kids both of which are adults now but what I did from the time they were little was to have ornaments that belonged to each of them. It started with ones that I already had and I knew were special for either of then and then each year I would add another ornament to their collection. Some I bought but many were made so that they had special meaning. Maybe this will help. At 22 and 25 they still love to open their box and decorate the tree.