Oh. Christmas Tree.

I'm one of those people who gets all hopped up on turkey and decides to drag out all the Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving night. It's just because I like to keep the holiday magic going as long as I possibly can (although I'm also one of those crazies who insists on tearing everything down before the start of the new year). This year we were visiting family until November 29th - but as soon as we got home, where was I? Yeah. Trekking my happy little hiney out to the storage closet in our garage, in search of the Christmas tree.

Last year we decided to disassemble the tree rather than leaving it together like we had the year before. But that may not have been the brightest idea, because the tree is like 11 years old and has literally moved with us all over the world (it's been shipped to Missouri, Texas, Germany, Nevada, and Iowa in its piddly little cardboard box) so it's kind of on its last legs. And most of the little tags indicating which tier each branch goes on have been torn off through years of shuffling. So I spent like three freaking hours organizing each branch by size, all while using my greatest seasonal threat ("I'll call Santa Claus!") to keep the kids from messing it all up.

Finally the tree was intact, but bare. However, there was no way I was decorating it while the kids were still awake. At this age, they're not old enough (or tall enough!) to successfully decorate a tree themselves, and they don't care as much for the decorating process as they do for the finished product. So after they went to bed, Curtis and I got busy. (Not that kind of getting busy, you pervs.)

Pretty soon, our tree was decorated. And beautiful. Behold, in all its glory:

But then the kids woke up. And literally within minutes, an hour at best, our tree looked like this:


See the difference? Lights and garlands askew, tree skirt rumpled, branches disheveled, all ornaments mysteriously missing from the bottom third. And that? Was taken a few days ago. It's worse now. Between three sets of little fingers, a 50-pound pup who has never seen a Christmas tree before, and a cat who just can't seem to help herself, our poor tree is pretty much doomed.

I need to learn a lesson from this. I do this to myself every year. I am a perfectionist control freak prefer my holiday decorations all neat and pretty and Martha Stewart-y. How impractical is that at this point in my life? Unless I hire some armed guards to stand in front of the tree, Buckingham Palace-style, there's absolutely no way to keep this crap tidy. (Plus, if I could afford to hire anybody, it'd be somebody to clean my house.)

So it begins. An entire month of cringing as I see yet another ornament in the dog's mouth or catch the baby gleefully tugging at the beaded garland. At least this year I had the sense to keep the presents in the closet until Christmas morning ...