Christmas Trees

Yes. I am decorating for Christmas.

TONIGHT.

No. I don't give a damn if you like it or approve of it.

That's all. 

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! You're Up Before Thanksgiving!

Yes, that's right.
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you.

We decked the halls yesterday.
Our Christmas tree is UP.
And it's only November 17.

Sue me.

OHMYGOD! You're combining the holidays! How will the turkey know that it is for Thanksgiving??? It's the end of days. The zombie apocalypse is near.

Give me a break. (Also, do you see how excited Emma is? Priceless.)

Yes, this is the earliest we have EVER put up our tree. Normally the tree goes up the day before Thanksgiving or ON Thanksgiving morning. And it comes down on December 26 or 27. Why? Because by that time I'm sick of looking at it.

Yeah, bah-humbug. Whatever. 

We have always put our tree up early. And by "we" I mean me and Kevin. We started doing it that way in 2003 when I was huge and pregnant and due on January 3, 2004 and I wanted nothing to do with taking a tree down in January. So....we figured if it was up by Thanksgiving we could take it down RIGHT after Christmas.

And so, our tree tradition was born.

As for yesterday, we were discussing decorating over our morning coffee and I said "ugh...I don't even want to think about it" and he said "let's do it today." And I said OK, sure.

And now it's November 17 and we have three Christmas trees up in the house (and decorated!) and the other snow globe and snowman displays are up too. The only thing we didn't do (for fear of looking TOTALLY INSANE) was decorate the outside of the house. THAT can wait.

Now, on the day before Thanksgiving we can take the kids to the movies and enjoy a relaxing day. And on Thanksgiving morning I can enjoy my coffee and the Black Friday ads without thinking about decorating.

And, I can take it all down on December 26 without even the smallest pang of guilt.

Monday musings

So it's Thanksgiving Week...and while I know I have work to do during the next few days, my brain is longing for the "vacation" that is Thursday and Friday.

As much as I love all things social media and the like, I really think I'm going to try and unplug (for the most part) on Thursday and Friday. Granted, my family's turkey day antics will undoubtedly result in a few tweets and/or Facebook posts, but lately I've felt permanently tethered to this damn laptop and...I. Need. A. Break.

In other news....

I might have mentioned here that I'm sort of a big huge Twilight fan. I'm #TeamEdward and I've read all the books (a few times). And yeah, I get it. It's not the best literature and Bella is annoyingly clingy and rather week (as female lit characters go, she's no Katniss Everdeen). But whatever. I don't really care. It's fiction people. Move on.

Last Thursday night my sister and I joined some friends for the Breaking Dawn 1 & 2 "double feature." Oh my Edward. It was so much fun. And (NO SPOILERS!) I'm just going to say, BD2 was the BEST film in the series. The end? Yeah. Left. Me. Breathless. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Except for this: I think it's quite possible that I'm now #TeamGarrett. (Twilighters will understand this).

And since it is Thanksgiving week, we decided to decorate the house for Christmas. Yeah, I get it. I'm as bad as the department stores, right? Why can't Thanksgiving have it's own week without all the holiday crap? I'll tell you why. Because for the last decade we've always put up the Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. And they come down a day or two after Christmas. It's how things are done around here. (And please, no lectures on the whole "must keep the Christmas tree up until after the new year for the whole 12 days of Christmas." It's just not gonna happen.).

And really, I noticed a lot of people getting their yards "holiday ready" this weekend...so I'm OK with the yard looking like Christmas is tomorrow. I also noticed some yards still "wearing" their Election Day decor - yard signs. Seriously people. It's time to take down the yard signs. The election is over. If your person didn't win, keeping the sign up isn't going to change the outcome. It's time to move on.

So with that....when do you decorate for the holidays? Before turkey day? And when do you "undecorate"?

Oh Christmas tree....

Here's an informal, day-after-Christmas poll for you:

Do you take your tree down before New Year's Day or do you wait until sometime in January to undecorate?

Here at the TLC household, the tree and all Christmas decorations will be taken down and packed away by next Tuesday.

Yes, that's right -- I undecorate before New Year's Day.

Oh the humanity!

Growing up, my family normally left the tree up until after January 1, and it was always a bummer to see it all come down.

Fast forward to now and I cannot wait to get my house back to "normal" (or as normal as it can be with two kids who own more Barbie dolls and mini princess things than should be allowed).

It's not that I dislike Christmas or the decorations - it's just that after all the craziness of the holidays, I just want things back in their place. And that means the tree needs to be boxed up and stored in the basement for another year.

Kevin and I started our 'tradition' of decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving morning when I was pregnant with Olivia (7 years ago). See, my due date was January 3rd and we had already planned that all decorations would be down before January 1st ("just in case"), so why figured "why not decorate on Thanksgiving morning?"

And now, that's our tradition - we decorate our house on Thanksgiving morning while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, by the time Christmas rolls around, the halls have been decked for a month.

And that's long enough for me.

As soon as Christmas is over (which in our family usually means about December 27th or 28th after all the other family "parties"), I start thinking about Olivia's birthday (January 9th) and then Emma's birthday (January 24th) -- I don't want to think about undecking the halls. I want to think about birthday cakes.

Taking the tree down before New Year's Day is what we've always done -- and I don't see that "tradition" ending any time soon.