People show off their holiday displays at Planet Christmas, from the relatively sane to the crazy nuts. There’s also a forum where those so inclined can swap tips.

Ha! I am no longer the Grinch! At least not on the outside. We have our tree up, it’s decorated, the advent calendar is out, and the stockings are waiting to be hung. The kids are pretty excited about it all, which is the important piece, really.

To go along with no longer being the Grinch, we had our Christmas pictures done two weekends ago. They weren’t supposed to be in until Dec. 21, but they came in early. And, I am almost done sending them out. Ahh…can’t wait to be done! Then, I won’t have to do it again until next year.

Cuz that’s how I feel. I’ve done most of the Christmas shopping, but that’s about as far as the Christmas “spirit” has taken me. (And why is it called “spirit”? I digress.) We are now at essentially 10 days until Christmas and what have we done for decorating? We have hung the outside lights. Yup, that’s it. No tree up, no stockings up, no presents wrapped, nothing. If I thought Sophia would let us get away with not putting the tree up, I’d definitely do it.

I want to be in the holiday spirit. I want to talk about Santa, Jesus (a little), sing carols, make cookies, hang the stockings, re-decorate the tree (after the kids pull them all off of it), etc. But, I’m just not. And I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I’m just plain tired these days. Perhaps because we don’t have snow (which is always a signal to be that Christmas is coming). Or maybe it’s because my parents have decided to change Christmas up a bit this year. I don’t know what it is, but I’d like it to go away. I’d like the “spirit.”

The Wagner Company of Milwaukee makes Festivus poles! Hee. Here’s how they do it.

How much do I want this replica of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree?

Or, maybe, I should just gift it to someone I know — then I can visit it, and not have to figure out how to store it later

We put up our tree today. Or maybe I should say that we unfolded our Christmas tree today. I’m still not done unfolding it actually. It’s taking longer to put up than a real tree.

My mom never let us put up the Christmas tree until several days before Christmas. I hated having to wait to put it up, especially when it was already selected and just waiting in a bucket of water in the garage. We were letting the bugs crawl out of it before bringing it in the house, or so they told me.

So, at our house, we put the tree up much earlier, but as much as I like having it up earlier, I just couldn’t do it before today.

Anyway, D located his stuffed Christmas Bear this morning on the floor of our closet. Not sure when it got left there, but listening to a rousing rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with Christmas Bear’s bright red nose, blinking in the early morning light and the kids humming along seemed like a fitting way to start December.

The lights were hung on the house! We have lived in this house for over two years. This is will be our third Christmas in this house. Yet we have never hung Christmas lights. At our old house, we had them in several places. This year we decided it was time for a change.

DH picked out the blue icecicles to hang from our gutters. He also decided that our two baby trees needed lights. But for some reason, he did one in clear and the other in blue. (It looks kind of silly, and I’ve told him so.) Instead of complaining about this, I’m trying to just be happy that we are finally getting in the spirit of things. Our house will finally look like Christmas is coming! (Hanging the lights was a big chore as we have a two story house and needed an extension ladder to hang them.)

In addition to the lights, the nerd in DH drove him to purchase a timer for said lights. Not just any timer, but a photo-sensor one that determines when it is dark enough for the lights to turn on, and light enough to turn off. Ah, yes, I do believe we are the geekiest holiday light owners on our block!

Now that the lights are hung outside, I’m ready to start getting the inside of the house in the Christmas spirit. Perhaps next Sat. we’ll get the tree out, decorate it, hang our stockings, and listen to Christmas music. First, let’s see how the week goes.

Just a quick note to say “Woo-hoo!” All of our Christmas cards have been sent out. It’s quite a relief to be done. I even addressed them all by hand (to the addressee and the return address). In Christmas colors! I’m such a dork…

On another happy note, it’s really nice having people how nice your picture turned out considering the 2.5 year old did NOT want her picture taken (even when a bribe of a sucker was involved) and a 6 month old who hadn’t napped. And parents who were a bit frazzled that said kids wouldn’t cooperate for just 15 min.! (As soon as I get one scanned, I’ll post.)

We finally put up our tree this past weekend. It is an ugly fake one, but will work until we can a) afford a new one, and b) the kids are a little older. And heck, when it’s dark and the tree lights are on, it looks kind of nice! Sophia had a grand time decorating the tree, and redecorating it, and redecorating it… I think you get the picture. The tree looks a bit odd because all of the nice ornaments are hanging at the top while the “ugly” ones are hanging at the bottom (since I don’t care if they get broken by little ones).

This is the first Christmas we’re actually celebrating with our own little family. The past two years Sophia was so young it didn’t matter. So we didn’t bother with stockings or presents here, we did it all at my parents house. But this year, she’s old enough to understand. It’s going to be fun to see her wake up in the morning and see the presents under the tree, and gifts in her stocking. I can’t wait to see her expression on her face. (Note to self: buy stockings!)

Getting close to completing our holiday shopping. We have a couple gifts we need to buy for charity, and a couple for our friends. We know what we’re getting the friends, but have no ideas for the charities (one is for a womens shelter for battered women and their children, the other is for a needy family in the area). I’ll probably buy stuff that I think I would have enjoyed getting as a teenager (that seems to be the age they are in most need of gifts for). Boy, I can’t wait to have all of this done!

Off to do some holiday reading with the 2.5 year old. Enjoy as you prepare for your holidays!

(Side note: I love that we’re getting lots of snow before Christmas. It sure puts me in the holiday mood!!!)

We bought our Christmas tree last Saturday morning. J is usually an ogre about getting a tree and about Christmas in general, so it was kind of neat to see him getting excited about going to get it with the kids.

We just went to a local lot and quickly picked one out. Daniel was not all that interested, but he’s paying attention to more than we know. Anyway, while we were waiting to get our tree stump cut down and to get the tree bagged, Daniel and I went just outside the lot into the parking lot to walk around. Daniel found a small tree that he liked in a grassy area near our car. He was standing there holding onto the tree watching other cars go by while we waited.

After a few minutes, we went to check on the progress of the Christmas tree wrapping and then came back out to wait some more. There was some dirt right around the tree (the one that he liked hugging) that I hadn’t really been paying attention to either time we were there.

“Look, Mama, ants!” I hear Daniel say.

“What!?” At about that same time, I hear one of the workers at the lot who was putting a Christmas tree on top of someone’s car nearby say, “Yep, those are fire ants.”

“What?!”

I quickly pulled Daniel away from the tree and began to examine his feet and pants. Sure enough. There were ants. Not that many, but too many all the same. I took off his shoes and socks and stripped his pants off. Thankfully, we got all of the ants off of his clothes before he got bitten. I had some on my shoes as well.

Crisis averted. Mostly. Next year, we’ll be sure to check the area for anthills.

Mommy’s taking pictures while Daniel’s playing in the ant pile.

Home and decorated! Please disregard the concentration of ornaments in the lower left corner of the tree. They have been artfully arranged by a 2.5 year old.