As we are now definitely spending our Christmas abroad, I’ve decided to let Christmas come early to our home. With our tickets booked on the 18th, and the business of shopping, school events and get-togethers looming, it made sense to start things early before the rush, when things go into full throttle after Thanksgiving. So over the weekend, we got the boxes of decorations out from storage and started the long, fun and sometimes emotional process of decorating. As Alvin and the Chipmunks played in the background, we managed to decorate the tree in a little over an hour, with just two fights, one tantrum and two broken ornaments. The smallest member of the family, our nearly-two Will, was especially adorable. With a very serious expression, he methodically placed ornaments on the bottom boughs of our tree, one after the other, for almost an hour, oblivious to everything else – which included his elder siblings arguments and tears (“That was my ornament!” or “He pushed me!”).
The rest of the holiday bits and bobs (the ceramic Gingerbread houses, the nativity set from Mexico etc) are slowly but surely finding their places, and hopefully I’ll get to decorating the staircase garland when I finish this post. If you haven’t started your Christmas decorating, check out these great tips I found below, which will should help get your family’s holiday season off to a good start!
Decorating the Tree – From always putting the lights first, to how you should stock up on cheaper ornament “fillers” and where you should place things for optimum effect – here are some very sensible tips to remember every year.
Get The Lights Right – Lights can make a huge difference in the overall look of your tree. Being safe is also essential. Learn how to do both right.
Making Your Own Decorations – This is a wonderful way to make the holidays even more special, especially if this is an activity you do as a family. Making ornaments is the easiest way to start, and if you have access to natural materials, you could be braver and make the bigger-ticket items like garlands and swags.
And lastly, make some house rules before you start. As kids get older every year, things change, so its good to lay down some method and rules beforehand to minimize the tears and arguments. For example, everyone takes turns to pick their 3 favorite ornaments first…and so on. My kids love Christmas so much that they get overly-excited, which, more often than not leads to emotions running high.
Photo via HikingArtist.com
Originally posted on November 11, 2009 @ 4:00 am
