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Christmas Chaos

December 21, 2010 by Susan

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

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Yes, I finally finished decorating our house for Christmas.

With all the chaos of my first year having a school-age child in Christmas performances and all the driving back and forth on top of everything else demanded of us moms during the Holiday season, I didn’t finish until this last weekend.

The Start

Oh, I started weeks ago… it’s just that we had a bit of a false start. You see, I thought this year we’d get an artificial tree and avoid the trouble of dragging a real tree in the house and constantly cleaning up falling needles. So one rainy night after school, the girls and I headed out to Costco to pick up an artificial tree. No luck. All sold out. We trudged back out in the rain, into the car and drove to the home depot. No luck. I don’t know if they had much to start, but there was nothing much festive when we arrived.

Back through the rain, into the car and on to where I figured we should have gone in the first place… Canadian Tire. Many of the trees were sold out, and what was left was already on discount, so we bought a mid-range tree on sale and dragged the boxed up tree through the rain, into the car and back to our house.

Finally, wet and tired, we got home and set up the tree. But it was rather disappointing. It was so unsteady that I was certain it would end up falling over on one of the girls. And it really looked like a sad excuse for a tree.

So the next day, I boxed it back up and dragged it back out in the rain, back to the store, which thankfully took it back without question.

But, now we were back to the start.

A couple days later, when the rain died down, the girls and I headed out to select a real tree. We spent about an hour looking at practically every tree in the lot as Julia and Sophia declared over and over that they’d found the perfect tree.

We happily took one home and began the pruning process… Olivia joined the party and the girls had great fun trimming branches.

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations - before

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations - before

The Hold-Up

The worst part of my decorating tackle was that I had to do a major clean-up before I could finish. A couple of the surfaces where we layout decorations were covered in clutter that required sorting.

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations - before

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations - before

The Finished Product

What a breath of fresh Douglas Fir scented air afterward…

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations

Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations Tackle it Tuesday - Christmas Decorations

So now as I sit on my couch and have my Christmas tree sparkle back at me, I think to myself… “What a relaxing scene… but now I have to take it all down in a week!”

But enough about my me… what about YOU???

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About Susan

Susan Carraretto and her identical twin, Janice Croze, created 5 Minutes for Mom in 2006. Susan loves all social media, but her top addiction these days is Pinterest.

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8 Comments

  1. Kristin says

    December 23, 2010 at 4:51 pm

    I did my very first tackle it tuseday post today! Thanks for the idea!

    Reply
  2. amy says

    December 21, 2010 at 11:01 am

    That “hold up” area is scary…looks a lot like my house 🙂 🙂 🙂

    My first linky didn’t link right, so I posted a second time. Not sure what I did wrong the first time??

    Reply
  3. Susie's Homemade says

    December 21, 2010 at 7:48 am

    It turned out GREAT! Awesome tackle:-)

    Reply
  4. Marni says

    December 21, 2010 at 2:41 am

    That looks great! Hehe on the pumpkins… 🙂

    Reply
    • Susan says

      December 21, 2010 at 3:57 am

      Thanks Marni! Yes, the pumpkins thing is rather funny.

      Reply
  5. Susan says

    December 21, 2010 at 12:59 am

    By the way, I took the lame before pictures and Janice took the nice after shots.

    Reply
  6. Erica says

    December 21, 2010 at 12:54 am

    I absolutely love that you still have pumpkins on your counter. I am dying of laughter over here.

    Reply
    • Susan says

      December 21, 2010 at 12:58 am

      Ha ha ha… I know… almost every day I laughed to myself that they were still on my counter. But oddly, they weren’t rotting and so I just left them there.

      Did you also notice I had a fan out from summer?

      Reply

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