Life As We Know It: A Mixed Nut Christmas

It was time to Christmas-fy the House once again! Slightly earlier then usual for us (SIDENOTE: Clayton has a strict rule of no Christmas decorations before DECEMBER 1- which is actually good because by New Years I'm totally done with the decorations, but this year we decorated a couple days before December as we had a busy week and I had planned a party for the weekend we would have normally decorated the house).

Uunfortunately decorating the tree didn't feel the same this year. Usually I decorate the house independently, and I always have MIXED NUTS with Steve Martin playing in the back ground (We only have this movie in VHS not DVD, Which i "borrowed" from my parents when I moved to College, which proves how long of 'Tradition' this is!). This is the one time of year I watch this movie, as My husband does not like it. I find the dry humor great and by the time they make the dead guy in to the Christmas tree, my tree is almost completely decorated and usually always looks way better then the dead-guy tree!

Anyway this year, I was not able to watch this Christmas favorite while decorating the house, as we no longer have a VHS player. I attempted to download it from the Internet, which proved too much for my low tech mind to comprehend. So there I was MIXED NUT-LESS but surrounded by my husband and son, who both opted to help this year! (Maybe I was surrounded by some NUTS! lol!)

We had bought a 7.5ft artificial Christmas tree last year after Christmas so It was our first year setting it up. Luckily its dummy proof to set up, A-B-C (LITERALLY!) After 'fluffying' the branches (oh the dreaded FLUFFING!) we proceeded to start putting on our decorations.

Getting Ready to "fluff", Section C

Post Fluffing, Pre decorations

William was very helpful, and we quickly learnt what decorations needed to go higher and which could be set with in the bottom 3 feet of the tree. I LOVE decorating the Christmas tree. We have a special tradition that my mom started were we buy a Christmas ornament from each place that we have travelled too. So each year when I decorate my tree I get to re-visit my memories from our travels! Those ornament are so special to me (and they went on the top 4 feet of the tree this year!)

Little knot here...

Of course William got to put the star on

So my tree looks a little different then usual this year. The bottom 3 feet of the tree is pretty bare, (and is getting more sparse as the days go on!) Plastic Christmas balls and ornament's have been my saviour as many of them have found themselves sailing through the air already.

To be fair William is not the only hazard to our tree, I have been chasing cats and dogs away too, The cats were trying to chew on the branches (which are pre-lit now; I really don't want a Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation KITTY BBQ!) And Tessa keeps trying to paw the cats out from under the tree and hits the branches knocking things off as she attempts to help. I'm doing better then my cousin Teal however, I got a text from her a couple days ago and her tree has hit the ground already courtesy of her curious little 2 year old!

NO KITTY BBQ!!

Tessa Not interested at this point

So although I didn't get my Mixed Nuts and My tree seems to be in more danger this year then previously, our house is merry and our hearts are warmer from the twinkly lights and glittery-ness of our environment!