One of my favorite parts of the Holidays is unwrapping the decorations and ornaments. There are several Rubbermaid bins in our attic just stuffed with Christmas accoutrements waiting to be let loose each December.My daughter loves this part now, too. She likes to be the one to unwrap certain "special" ornaments from the boxes - especially anything she's made over the years, as well as certain special ornaments that are "hers." The crystal swan. The penguin with the hot chocolate. The sparkly purple flip flop. The marshmallow s'more guy. She also wants to be the one to put those on the tree so everyone can see them first.
She also likes to be the one to unwrap the glass ornaments - the little ones that go near the top of the tree, and the big antique ones that I "hide" in the china cabinet, now that there are so few of them left.
My sons also get into the act, but there again, they only want to hang certain ornaments. The ones they made in preschool. The sparkly basketball to celebrate that he made the team again. The one shaped like a guitar that his aunt found for him in the city. These are the ones they want to hang.The rest of the ornaments? Not so much.
Don't get me wrong, I love decorating the tree. But now that my daughter has covered the dining room table with unwrapped ornaments, the task seems daunting.How about you? Do your kids help out until the very end, or do they lose interest and wander off after their few sparklies are hung? Is there a trick to this process that wasn't in the Mommy Handbook?
*sigh*
Let's get the coffee pot brewing and get started!
Santa used to bring our tree and decorate it in the really early years...no wonder Mom and Dad looked like they did on Christmas morning! Then as we got older and helped Santa by decorating the tree, Dad sat in a chair and 'supervised', including putting the tinsel on the tree one strand at a time so it would hang properly. No clumping or tossing when he was in charge.
ReplyDeleteThis brought back so many memories! I don't remember the kids losing interest, but I think we all pitched in and stuck with it until it was finished. Like your kids, they each had their favorite ornaments and would move them to the front and center of the tree. Our oldest made a HUGE yellow star in nursery school and he'd put it right in front...his siblings would move it to the back (they didn't like it stealing the show), and so the star would go back and forth for weeks. There was a lot of clumping, too...they'd stick a bunch of ornaments in one place. A few years ago (our kids are now in their 30's!) our daughter thought we should have a "decent, stylish" tree, so I packed up each kid's ornaments and returned them to their rightful owners, and decorated the tree in silver and gold. Very posh looking, but not much fun, and certainly doesn't evoke any memories. I wonder if the kids kept their ornaments or got rid of them? Many items that have great sentimental meaning to me are not valued by them...they are able to keep the memory without owning the item...have a very merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteI used to love the special ones too. When my sister and I finally did get into decorating the tree AND got tall enough to do most of it, my mom was thrilled!
ReplyDeleteI still remember the year her spun glass angel disappeared. It was the IT ornament to hang. Such a sad year for the tree. Never found it :(
But MAN that table looks like a festive Christmas clown threw up. Wow! You have A LOT of ornaments(in a good way)! They look so pretty though!!