Patience for Christmas

A few days ago, Sam and I were finally ready to put up the Christmas decorations. Now, this is a feat in and of itself. To begin, we (I) finally agreed to purchase a prelit tree. I acquiesed on this to avoid the annual domestic dispute that occurs at 217 Ladd when we attempt to untangle the Christmas lights.

Well, we found the perfect tree: it has 500 white lights and 500 multi-color lights. This is great for us because Sam and I have a fundamental disagreement on what a Christmas tree should look like: I prefer multi-color lights with fun, family ornaments, Sam prefers all white lights with matchy, matchy ornaments. I bought the tree online because I found a coupon code for free shipping...no hauling this thing home from the store. You see where this is going right?...when we received it, some of the lights didn't work.

A few days later, Sam loaded this tree in my car and I headed off to Target. I got to the parking lot and realized that I had yet to handle this tree on my own. Needless to say, it was a rough, sweaty trip, but I got the thing exchanged.

So now here we are with a mostly functional prelit, mulit-colored and white light Christmas tree. We clean up dinner and commence this endeavor. Eva is content in her chair throughout this entire process. Patrick is SOOOOO excited. We start handing him ornaments and teach him how to gently hang them on the tree. 2 hours and most of my Christmas cds later, the tree is done...and perfect. Sam and I are frazzled shells of our once amiable selves, but very proud of our pretty living room and our excited, exhausted, but determined son. You'll see a pic of me and Eva as well as one of Patrick and I, each with our own pickle ornament.

So this Christmas, we're learning to slow down and enjoy the journey, not to focus only on the end result. I am learning patience whether I like it or not. Don't worry, we're not crazy though...we'll be taking all this down when Patrick is at school!