Twas the Month Before Christmas

The limbs glisten like snowflakes shining by the light of a full moon, the jewels hang from front to back to side, dangling and bursting with many-prisms-of-color; and sometimes they twist and turn when the least bit of air catches beneath them, just enough to seem like tiny ballerina’s dancing on a stage.

The colors of red and green spread throughout as well, draping shelves, lining table runners, and lounging on the backs of chairs and couches. Holiday blankets begging to warm your feet and pillows of the same to rest your head, as you close your eyes for a short winter’s nap dreaming of Christmas’s past.

The family will all stand and stare, arms linked with one another, admiring the warmth and beauty of the sights before them – and then turn and gaze into the eyes of the loved one standing next to them, remarking about how lucky they all truly are to belong to one another.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH – REWIND! Wait! You all didn’t think I was talking about me and mine did you? Oh goodness gracious no! That’s not how it goes AT ALL in our house.

The whole decorating “experience” is riddled with words that are neither holy or nice, mostly naughty and scary. It’s a trial and error event every year, and that any of us makes it through without having to be a material witness for one another is truly a Christmas miracle!

All of our decorations are out in “the shed”. I hope that sounds as scary as it always turns out to be. They are all stored on the top of the loft which means it takes two people to get them down. One to hand them off and the other down below to try and grab them without being crushed/annulated/or knocked unconscious.

This of course also requires a LOT of shouting, some mild cursing, and calling each other less than exemplary names. Sometimes the hand-off goes flawlessly, other times, the heavy-as-heck box in question will shoot right out of the loft-guy’s hands and shoot out over the top of the floor-guy’s head and sail through the air stopping only when hitting another object below.

Once all the decorations are down: the tree box, the light boxes, and all the inside decoration/pretties – the real fun begins. The tree is fairly simple to put together, the lighting of the tree however; well that turns in a major fracas, every single year.

No matter the meticulous wrapping of those lights when they are coming down after Christmas, they somehow manage to mangle themselves into knots over the summer and come back out the next year looking like the conniving Grinch himself has been into that box.

All of these things happened the weekend after Thanksgiving at our home. Everyone is still alive, most of us are still speaking, and while we did not hold hands and sing Silent Night after it was all done, we did smile a lot, and tell each other how good it always looks when we’re done, no matter the struggle.