Christmas Things

I have been a little off today.  The Murph and the cats beware!  It didn't help that I tackled the outside Christmas lights which were in a tangled mess as strings of lighting usually get and the extension cords too.  Good thing is I finished most of the outside Christmas decorations and most of the lights still work from last year.  My mood got a little better until I got a call from The Boy.  Things went downhill again.  He can be very disrespectful.  I don't know when he will ever get it that he's an adult now and some of the things I automatically did for him as a child, I do now to "help" him out of the goodness of my heart, but not a mommy requirement anymore.  Especially when I'm being called "stupid" or an "annoyance" or he tells me "I don't know what I'm doing" etc, yet he needs my help.

Will he ever learn?

On to happier things!  Here's some of my favorite Christmas decorations collected over the years or adopted from The Murph's collection.  I've spent a month going through boxes and getting stuff out and still am not finished.  The Murph offered to help, but mostly just wanted to avoid the whole mess of it.  He did say tonight that while he doesn't like the decorating process, he does like it when it's all done.

 I do love this little pink Christmas tree purchased at Michael's a couple of years ago.

One of The Murph's favorites is this nativity scene.

And I always have a stocking for the cats.  They are almost human after all. (at least they think they are)

Our first Christmas ornament.

More of my favorites.  Not surprising that most of my favorites involve clothing, shoes or cats.

From the days I actually thought SouthPark was funny.  I'm just sick that way.

The Murph wanted to know why there was a dress hanging on his tree.

And shoes too.  Lots of shoes!

That's it for now.  I'm still working on The Boy's tree where I have all of the ornaments he ever made from toddlerhood through the school years.  Some of my all time favorite, one of a kind ornaments ever.

It's Not Even Thanksgiving Yet But I Did It Anyway

I went ahead and put the Christmas trees up earlier this year, even though I haven't put ornaments on them yet.  I usually wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving to put the tree/trees up, but this year we may be at the beach that weekend, so I went ahead and put them up early.

If you remember, last year I put up five trees.  This year I'm down to three.  One in the living room, one  in the family room and one down in the boy's "apartment".  The tree above is the family room tree and the one below is the Boy's tree.  I thought he would like having one of his own this year when he gets home from college.  He seemed to like it last year although he didn't really have much to say about it.

I thought Phantom would like it if I put his cat bed under the tree to give him a comfy spot.

The cats get all excited when I get the Christmas decorations out.  They love sleeping under the trees.  Phantom has already taken over the living room tree below.  I had it in the family room last year, but it's so big I moved it this year.  It's too tall for this house.  The living room ceiling is no higher than the family room.  It's hard to cram a 9 ft tree under an 8 ft ceiling.

My obsession with Christmas trees goes way back.  When I was a kid, I would always start pulling the tree out the weekend after Thanksgiving.  We always had artificial trees instead of real ones.  That made it easier.

When I was in college, I put a pathetic little 4 ft tree with ugly decorations up in my apartment.  I brought it with me when I married my first husband, the Boy's father, who just happens to be Jewish and didn't really appreciate having a Christmas tree in his house.  I still remember the fight we had when his grandmother, who was an Orthodox Jew, was going to come for a visit and I refused to hide the tree in a closet.

I don't remember what we did with the tree during her visit.  Probably stuck it in a bedroom temporarily.  It was very offensive!

Once the Boy came along I felt the need for a bigger tree so I traded the 4 ft tree in for a 6 ft tree.  The Boy's dad was kind of use to my tree by then so he didn't say anything.  His grandmother had passed so  the tree wasn't going to cause any major family crisis.  I upgraded the ornaments too, from super tacky to mid-level tacky.

My first Christmas after the divorce was final was a glorious one.  I bought the biggest, fullest pre-lit tree my ceiling could handle.  The one I now have crammed in the living room.   That baby can take some popcorn off those 80's ceilings!

When it was delivered to the house, the box was so heavy that the Boy, who was 11 at the time, and I had to drag the box around to the back yard, open it and take the tree section by section into the house.  It barely fit under the ceiling in all it's pre-lit gloriousness.

Eventually, I decided it would be even better to have a tree in every room.  I got over that idea after a couple of years.  Too much, even for an obsessed Christmas tree lover like me.

The entire reason I never converted to Judaism when I married the Boy's dad can totally be blamed on the Christmas tree.  But that's an entirely different story.  Sort of.  I could call it "The Rabbi and the Christmas Tree."

The Murph Family Christmas Trees by Barbie

Living Room Christmas Tree.  The "Glamour" Tree with silver and white decorations and a sparkly silver tree skirt.   My favorite.

Dining Room Tree.  The only white Christmas Tree with multicolored lights, all the other trees are green with white lights.  I call this the "Mardi Gras" tree because of the strings of Mardi Gras beads used as garland.

Family Room 9 ft Tree.  I love this one too.  This one is the "Music and Fashion" tree with mostly red and gold ornaments.  I love the burlap garland with the music notes from Pottery Barn.  I wish I had bought another roll of it last year.  I also love the little dresses and shoes and the hanging Santa Claus suits that are on this tree and the musical ornaments.

Office Tree.  This one is the "Snow Skiing/Lodge" Tree with gondola ornaments, snow ski, snow shoes and mitten ornaments.  

Another view of the Snow ski Tree.  I love the skiing Santa ornament on the right above the gondola.

Downstairs tree in the Boy's "apartment".  A lot of the ornaments were made by him when he was younger.    This one is "The Boy's" Tree.

Another view of the family room tree with the angel precariously balanced on top.

It's a little crowded up here!  Don't try to cram a 9ft tree under an 8 ft ceiling...