The Christmas Room

I know many of you love Christmas decorations. You love to get the boxes out as early as you can and for a month, (or more for some of you if you can manage it somehow) you love seeing your house covered from top to bottom in lights, flowers, wreaths, reindeer, candles, trees, fake snow, snow globes, santas, snowmen, and all manner of twinkly, fragrant, red, green, gold, and silver decorations.

I am not one of those people. I am, unfortunately, a bit... decorationally-challenged. I love to see someone else's beautiful home decorated well. I actually like tasteful outdoor decoration (when I say tasteful, anything that requires its own pump to keep it up is most definitely NOT included!) And I have a handful of items I love inside my house: a tree and my nativity set are the main ones.

But in my own home, most Christmas decoration is just festive clutter - something else to buy and dust and straighten. I, find myself cringing as I pull out the boxes thinking, "Man... where in the world am I going to put this stuff that will be out of the way, won't tempt little fingers to explore it, and won't tempt me to clean the house every single day?" And I have to put it all away again in a month!

This year, I found the perfect solution! We decided to put up our tree in a room that was formerly the "fort room." This room has not been used for anything really since the boxes were finally all flattened and stored. But we did some rearranging and now this room has some comfy furniture, a beautiful Christmas tree, and almost ALL my decorations! Christmas kinda threw up in there!

I love this solution because it gives us a Christmasy place to enter when needing a little bit more Christmas in our day. The boys love it because it is how they would love EVERY room to look!

We are suddenly moving our favorite books in there and there is now a bin of blocks in there. Ben does his daily reading curled up under a blanket in there. The ornaments on the tree have become their new favorite toys and they all have names and occupations and keep having tree climbing contests (the ornaments, not the boys.)

I am so thankful to be in this house and be able to have an out-of-the-way-yet-still-convenient room to make-over in this way. And I have to say, we are all having so much fun with the Christmas room, I find the decorations slowly leaking out of there and finding homes in other rooms. Perhaps the joy it all brings my boys is worth the inconvenience of clutter for me.

And candles really are pretty...

So It Begins

Needing something to do today to get out of the house, Mitchell, Jack, and I headed off to the craft store.  I can always use something from there and we needed an excuse to get out.  Mitchell LOVES the craft store, mainly because there is always some holiday close enough for this type of store to just go nuts over it.  For the last couple months, it has been all the Halloween decorations that have enthralled him - spooky costumes, skeletons, costume "weapons" and anything "haunted" (which to him, just means scary) were his favorite points of interest.  But I am finding out that was nothing compared to what is coming.

When we walked through the doors, Mitchell's eyes got as wide as can be and he just stared.  He literally stopped moving and just stared.  I feel like we were just there a couple days ago, but since then, the place has completely transformed into Christmas land!  He was too young last year, and we were busy with a new baby and just didn't get out as much during this season, so I think this really hit him as something never seen before.  Once his thoughts caught up to his initial physical reaction, he exclaimed, "Mom!  It's already Christmas in here!  Let's stay here all day!"

Oh Mitchell, you have made my day.  Yes, it is a bit early to be so excited about Christmas, but you have captured for me what Christmas can mean to a child.  He was so enchanted by every last thing on the shelves.  Each one was magical and worthy of complete inspection and discussion.  He was trying reindeer antlers on Jack, putting on Santa hats, ringing loud bells, rubbing sparkles off ornaments and onto his face, literally skipping up and down isles, shaking snow globes, asking questions, looking for Baby Jesus, and keeping Jack and me quite entertained.  

His top picks (for me to buy for him for making our house look just like this store) were:

reindeer antlers for baby Jack

a GIANT tree

loud jingle bells for the door

a cheesy snowman/penguin candle

a giant ornament covered in loose sparkles that were falling off everywhere

cookie decorating kit

Santa costume 

a dog elf costume (I don't think he  knows what an elf is or that it was for a dog)

No, I did not actually buy any of this stuff.  He actually wasn't upset by that at all.  He was just having way too much fun "shopping for cool stuff" as he put it, and didn't seem to have any expectation of actually buying it.  

I remember when Christmas was so enchanting for me and I can't remember when it lost that magic exactly.  Since then though, this is what I have been waiting for: to see my kids' faces light up over the things that have lost their luster for me and do my best to establish traditions (some borrowed from my childhood, some new) for them that will only  make this season even more special and meaningful for them.  Thank you for brightening my day with your enthusiasm and childlike wonder, Mitchell!  We will definitely be back soon!