True to Hibbert tradition, we've got our tree up before the month of December starts. If I were die hard like my dad was in the 90's, one of them would have been up before Halloween. I say "one of them" because sometimes there were like 13 trees of various sized in my childhood home. My dad was a major Christmas man. The years have tempered him a little bit, which is a factor of age and also that he doesn't have all the kids around to help him put everything up. We usually put up two trees. Our kid/family tree in the front room holds any ornaments that the kids make at school or crafty things (just in case
something like this happens!!) And our tree in the side room is our Jesus Tree - white, red and gold with a few nativity ornaments and a little nail from Corey's mom from a few years ago, to remind us of Christ and his sacrifice.
Mel and I put them up last week after Thanksgiving while the kids were up at Park City. Then we all decorated them over the weekend. Although now that we're a few days into it, I'm taking a mental note to wait a week or two next year, cause it's just too long of a time for kids to ruin any efforts we adults or big kids made to have it actually look nice...
Owen and Natalie pulled the lights off so they were totally loose, so I had to re-string them up which was a pain...
And they like to take off the ornaments. I don't mind as long as they put them back on. I don't even care if they're all concentrated around the base of the tree. But I hate having them scattered around the house. We have enough junk to clean up without adding a hundred plastic ornaments to the mess.
Owen is the main culprit for the ones loose on the floor. I blame Ethan for the broken ones since I caught him crushing one in his hand then saying "I didn't know it'd break!!" Natalie thinks they are shiny balls and throws them as high as she can on the bookshelf. Natalie and Sophi also use them as food (apples) when they play. Owen took note and puts the little ones in his mouth
Yummy!
So I was excited to put up the tree, but I'm also already looking forward to taking it down.
