Mamma Loves...

Days posting in a row: 40
Number of posts ever: 100

Mood: Feeling pretty darn proud of myself

Harry's seranading me with Christmas tunes, the smell of fresh pine is in the air, I'm sipping egg nog and the tree is decorated!!! To top it all off, this is the 100th post I've put up on my blog. Who would have thunk it?!

Way back in June when this all started I never knew how long I'd keep it up. I had no idea if anyone would be interested in my take on life. I had no idea how anyone would ever find this little piece of real estate, but that was before I got to know some of my favorite bloggers and couldn't resist adding a comment or two. Of course, that was also before anyone had ever heard of NaBloPoMo which is responsible for nearly half of the posts on this here blog. What fun! What fun!

Back to Christmas.

With the help of two small elves, one medium elf who got bored and one large one the tree's up, the lights are on and it's mostly decorated. I've been waiting for the elves to go to bed to finish up. The clumping of ornaments on the bottom third of the tree only gave me visions for what the tinsel might look like. I had no idea you could actually get that many ornaments on one branch. Mrs. Claus must go around after everyone is asleep and spread them out a bit.

I love seeing people's holiday decorations. From the choice of the outdoor lights (colored v. white, steady v. flashing, strands v. figures) to the tree (real v. artificial, white v. colored lights, theme v. a collection of ornaments, tinsel v. no tinsel, garland, v. none, angel v. star on top) you can tell a lot about a person by their decorations. Think about it. Have you ever really driven up to a friend's house at the holidays and been surprised by how their house was decorated (or not)?

If you grew up in a real tree family, you probably can't imagine having an artificial one. If you grew up with artificial, you probably can't imagine why anyone would go through the hassle of buying a real one. Shakey and I are enjoying a marriage of these two backgrounds. They all said it would never work, but I think we've done a great job of adapting our traditions. We have a real tree every year--just like I had growing up.

Actually the tree isn't the only difference in our background. Yeah, people used to walk on the other side of the street when they saw us coming. You could hear them whisper, "I can't believe THEY are together. Such a shame!" You see, his family opens their presents on Christmas Eve--mine on Christmas morning. I know, it's shocking! But America is just going to have to learn to accept diversity in all its forms.

Frankly, our children are growing up living the best of both worlds. Christmas actually begins for them at 4:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve when we sit down to our dinner at my in-laws, then to church (yeah, my family--not so much) and then back to their house to begin the present fest. We then all open presents at the EXACT SAME TIME, bundle them back up, clean up the wrapping and bows and head home to get in bed and await Santa's visit. The next morning they start all over again. First to see what Santa delivered, then to open their stockings, then a little breakfast strudel and over to the tree for present fest v.2. In this version however we all take turns opening gifts so we can see what everyone received (I told you, Shakey and I came from very different backgrounds). Somewhere around noon we clean up the paper and bows and then get ready to stuff our faces once again. Whereas my husband was all done by Christmas morning and I had nothing to do until Christmas morning, our brood gets to enjoy both.

Who says inter-Christmas marriages don't work?