Decorating Day

My husband likes to razz me for being able to find the cloud in every silver lining. No, I didn’t write that backwards – the man thinks I’m pessimistic. I prefer to call it realism. It’s not that I think I’ve been dealt a difficult lot in general. My life is beyond blessed in many areas. In spite of this, however, I find that when it comes down to the irritating details, Murphy’s law seems to liberally apply. I prefer to be mentally prepared for it when it strikes.

Unexplainably, every vestige of this pessimistic/realistic outlook of mine evaporates each year on Christmas Decorating Day. I love Christmas…and not just the part that I’m supposed to love. Yes, it’s wonderful beyond comprehension that God came to this earth in the form of a human baby and worked a plan for our salvation. I revel in that fact every year. But I am also a complete sucker for glowing Christmas lights, the smell of cinnamon and cloves, presents wrapped up in glittery wrapping paper, Andy Williams singing “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” my husband’s homemade fudge, and stockings hung by the fireplace with care. Call me shallow if you must, but hauling out the tree and all the decorations is one of my favorite days of the year…and somehow, for this one day, I turn into the eternal optimist.

I have this vision in my head: twinkling lights, Andy Williams crooning my favorite Christmas songs, my husband smiling over a simmering pot of fudge, my children laughing and gaily hanging ornaments together, and our family dog comfortably curled up by the warm, crackling fire. (I choose to ignore the fact that we don’t have a dog, and our gas fireplace doesn’t crackle.) I enter decorating day each year in full expectation of my vision coming to pass.

We don’t have one of those beautifully coordinated Christmas trees that I drool over in the pages my Country Living magazines. We’ve settled for a Christmas tree that looks like a cat threw it up. It’s made up of a conglomeration of ornaments collected from our childhoods, ornaments that mark momentous occasions and family trips, ornaments that our children have made in Sunday school, and the occasional pipe cleaner candy cane. I love the fact that each one of our ornaments tells a story, and every year as I hang them, I take a stroll down memory lane. I’ve always envisioned my children doing the same – gingerly picking up an ornament from the box, carefully bringing it over to me, and asking in an angelic voice, “What does this one mean, Mommy?”

As you may have guessed, that’s not exactly how it goes around here. Instead, my husband’s face holds a look of strain as he stands covered head-to-toe in a giant ball of Christmas lights that refuse to be untangled even by MacGyver-like efforts, my children tear into the box of ornaments and fight over who gets to hang which one, I struggle to even be able to hear Andy Williams over the chaos, and as I glance over and notice that our fireplace hearth is still devoid of a family dog, I suddenly catch a faint whiff of fudge burning in the kitchen.

This year is going to be different. I have a plan. First, I’m going to have the kids play “chubby bunny” while they decorate the tree (they can’t possibly fight while their mouths are stuffed full of marshmallows, can they?) Next, I’m going to pre-grease the light strings with Vaseline to help my husband out, and finally, I’m disconnecting the smoke detector in the kitchen so we won’t have to stop the festivities when the fudge starts burning. (I have lovely neighbors who I’m sure will call the fire department for us if there’s a real problem.) It’s fool-proof!!!

Happy decorating day from our family to yours!