…Christmas, everywhere you go…

Except my house. But I’m working on it. Really.

Yesterday I climbed into the attic and threw stuff down through the trap door. Christmas stuff. Garlands. Bags o’seasonal treasures. If it was breakable then I carried it halfway down the ladder (the steep-narrow-shouldn’t-climb-this-thing-with-your-hands-full ladder) before tossing it onto my son’s old bed. Bouncing is good. Shattering is not.

So now, twenty-four plus hours later, most of it’s still on the floor of my son’s old room. Or on his bed. Everything except…ta ta…drumroll please–the lights!

Because if nothing else happens this Christmas, having a few lights up makes me happy. Very happy. So happy I could stop right there. But I won’t because we’ve got a two year old coming.

Toddler+Christmas=BLING.

Last year, in a moment of absolute freakin’ BRILLIANCE, I carefully put each strand of lights in it’s very own bag as soon as I took it down. It’s own special bag with a label. A label that said where it was supposed to go. Front windows. Back Windows. Tree.

Here’s the dining room without lights.

Dining Room

Boring. Positively spartan. Come January I’ll be eager to return to the simplicity. But now, see what a difference a couple strands of icicle lights makes.

Dining room lights

Ohhhhhhhhhh…. And now, the same before and after in the living room.

Living room window

Before. Complete with exercycle and floor pillow jumble on the window seat.

WIndow lights

After. All the stuff stuff will go away. The tree will be to the right. But it’s a start.

And then there’s the reflections.

back door reflections

Ahhh…

And now I’ll leave you with the song that’s been bouncing around in my head all day. My go-to Christmas decorating song.

Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll embed another one in your head. But not until this one becomes hardwired in your brain cells.