A Keepin' It Real Christmas Season...

I love the little bits of shimmer and joy of the Christmas season sprinkled into all the great big hunks of reality, don't you?

***First off, a public service announcement***

I need your addresses please, dear friends! Remember when my computer decided to transform itself into a useless brick? Well it went down swinging and took with it my updated Christmas Card list that doubled as my address book. My latest version prior to that is three years old. So if you love us and we love you, pretty please text/email/Facebook message/carrier pigeon your address to me? Please please?! Thanks a million!

Next Up: 

Lots of fun talk about decorations and reality and the kind of productivity that doesn't really count. Short version: look at all these cool pictures of our decorations that I made even though real life keeps happening!

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We've lit the Advent wreath and the oratory candles only once so far and it's already almost the third week of Advent. But my Blessed Is She Advent journal is getting lots of mileage which is helping me personally on the spiritual front!

I also put out the straw "fluff" for Jesus on the Little Oratory but it's just sitting there, not carrying on last year's tradition of letting to kids put a piece of straw in Jesus's manger for each good deed they do. That would require both cluing them in to the presence of the straw and getting the manger out. (Crunch time tactic, maybe?)

But we have shamelessly used the passive-aggressive Elfie to our parenting advantage:

Two nights in a row at that. Guess which parent did which?

Unfortunately Elfie hasn't seemed that much more beneficial than my attempt to curb the kids' materialism. I got so tired of hearing "I want that! I want that TOO!" during every blasted commercial they saw that I told them they could keep a list and choose one thing to ask Santa for. This was Marie's list after less than 24 hours.

The "choklit pooting" (chocolate pudding) is my favorite.
She had it after her dental surgery this summer and loved it
so much she's asking for it for Christmas. Sure thing, kid!

Then there was the wreath making--because I really needed four more Christmas wreaths in addition to the five we already have. Really I did. Hence the beginning of all sorts of productivity--doing things I didn't need to do instead of things I sorta did, like laundry and dishes and all those Spirit of Christmas killers.

No better way to get in the spirit of chore neglect
than Josh Groban and yards upon yards of deco mesh and burlap.

But it's a good thing I got those outside wreaths done because they--along with Jesus and company--are currently the only things alerting the neighbors to the fact that we haven't forgotten that Christmas exists.

See, the lights were mostly up last weekend. But then they came down, because stress is no fun and communication is hard and outlets are inconveniently placed. (We can sing The 12 Pains of Christmas all day long in solidarity...)

BUT the good news is that, in an unprecedented planning victory, I've already bought nearly every gift for every person on our list (and I even got my early Christmas gift of the functional techonlogy on which I'm currently typing!). I even got the Angel Tree gifts back to the church BEFORE the deadline! A true Christmas miracle. Now for Peter to wrap them all because I am incompetent...

I also managed to remember the Feast of St. Nicholas this year! I'd been planning to do something traditional (like putting shoes out for little gifts) in an effort to steer the kids more toward the 'giving to people in need' spirit of St. Nick than the 'tell me what gift you want' spirit of Santa Clause. I quickly forgot about my whole plan until approximately 10:36 the night before, so I snuck into the kids' rooms for shoes and remembered that I'd gotten them all rosaries for stocking stuffers (score!). I whipped a little something together and proudly set it out, only to wake up the next morning to hear Marie crying about not liking anything she got except one thing. Ya win some, ya lose some.

Shiny: did you know that submerging ornaments is not as simple as Pinterest makes it look? Shocker...

Then there's the story of The Three Trees. 

I knew it was probably inevitable when I started getting not-so-subtle hints from Peter around Thanksgiving...texts with pictures of a 12-foot pre-lit tree at Homeboy Depot and casual mentions of a tree that would reach the ceiling of our two-story family room and other such preposterousness.

Me:  "Why are you sending me pictures of fake trees when we already have two?"
Peter:  "It's pre-lit!"
Me:  "..."
Peter:  "And it would look really good in the family room! ...and it's only $400."
Me:  "We already have TWO."
Peter:  "..."
Me:  "Well, maybe this is the year we try a real tree. And then we're not stuck with it if it's too ridiculous."
Peter:  "Done."

Hence the 15-foot Colorado Concolor Tree that now resides in the family room, while the Jesus tree is in its prominent place in the front bay window:

And finally, the has-been family tree has retired upstairs to sulk forlornly with the laundry that I need to fold but will probably just throw on the floor because all our baskets are in use serve as a festive centerpiece to our master bedroom oasis.

Hey, I ran out of steam after the first two. But at least The Tree That Shall Remain Undecorated already has lights on it (and a single forgotten gymnastics ornament from last year that I probably won't bother to take off).

Speaking of decorating the tree, we had to miss the 3rd Annual Friendsgiving for the second year in a row (try that math) because Ethan once again got sick. So instead of parading him around with a 103 fever, we stayed in and decorated the Big Kahuna. The little guy even did his fair share whilst hyped up on sugary fever reducer before he crashed. Total bottom feeder.

How many ornaments can you fit on one branch? If you're Ethan: ALL OF THEM.
Snuggling with his digger ornament and watching big brother do big kid stuff.

Any guesses on how many days/attempts it took to get the angel up? (3 days. At least 15 attempts.) We've agreed that next time (yes, I've already agreed to a next time) the angel goes on before the tree goes up. I'm happy to have a real tree in the house again after seven full years of baby proofing fake trees. I grew up always picking out a real every year. But it will be a long time before I agree to a drive into the Rocky mountains to cut down a 15-foot tree...not the same as cutting down a 9-foot tree from a happy little Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania.

At the end of the day, it's been quite the nice addition. I can even get a picture of the whole thing while standing in the kitchen. And if I crop the picture just so, it is beautiful and sanitized enough to post to Facebook for an inside look at our perfect life!

What dishes?

Last stop: find that coconut milk eggnog that I know one of my trusty grocers has to have stocked for me by now!

Hope your real is getting filled with a bit of sparkle and shine too--but not at the expense of your sanity. May your Advent be fruitful, and may your children always believe that wine bottle covers are really puppets.

[Psst! Addresses pretty please!]