It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I love this time of year! I have to admit, that I wasn't quite ready to start decorating as early as my daughters were with so many other loose ends I was hoping to wrap up first... which led to a not as "magical" gingerbread house experience... I was in the middle of something else, but this COULDN'T wait!!!! The walls weren't staying up with all the little hands in there... the icing wasn't cooperating too well... my frustration levels were up and I could hear a little voice telling me that this isn't quite how this moment is supposed to be!! It's supposed to be a wonderfully fun loving bonding experience with the kids! Well, I blew it with my impatience on that one last weekend... but now that I've knocked many things off my list that had my head spinning, I've regrouped and am back in the swing of things!



We came back to the gingerbread house to decorate it - much more pleasant experience! We got the lights up on the house and the tree up... This has always been one of my favourite parts of Christmas! As a Northern Ontario girl, I grew up going out in the ski-doo (snowmobile) or on snow shoes with my sibblings to find the "perfect" Charlie Brown tree in the bush to bring home... (you see, not too many trees out in the actual forest look perfect... there were always big bald spots in the trees leaving extra room for dangling decorations... or we'd have to hide that side in the corner to hide it... but we (the kids and my dad anyway) loved our trees! We were mad the first year my mom bought one, well at least I was!) Regardless, the smell, the sticky sap, trimming it down to fit in the house, then trying to get it to stand straight, first stringing the lights, then the mish mash of ornaments we'd collected over the years - home made and bought ... I've always loved every bit of putting up the Christmas tree! My parents used to wait until the last few days before Christmas for us to come home from school to take part in the tradition each year! It brings back fond memories with my sibblings (and many ski-doos stuck in the snow!)




Unsure of whether we were staying put or heading off to visit family this year... up went the artificial pre-lit tree ... (tough for this northern girl to admit... but to my surprise it looks pretty good!) It's decorated with our own mish mash of ornaments collected over the years - some gifts, some bought, some made by the kids - or by us as kids!... Julia would get annoyed at her younger sister for putting 3 ornaments on the same branch, but for some reason, no fighting could get to me that day... (unlike the gingerbread house experience... which is foreign to me growing up!)... this is different... I just soaked it in and enjoyed doing that with the girls - bringing back lots of memories... I do look forward to having a real tree in the house again! (I miss the smell! I guess I'll have to light candles this year - not the same... I know...), regardless, the tradition lives on in our family (minus the heading off into the bush... I don't think it'll ever be quite like that again! Tree farms with their perfectly manicured trees just aren't the same - even if you do get to cut it down yourself! - and no, I've never felt guilty about cutting down a tree for Christmas... I've planted thousands upon thousands of trees during my university years as a summer job!)


I always find such a void in January when all the decorations are gone... the house looks so EMPTY! For now, it's warm and awesome! Still a work in progress, but it's coming and I love it ;)