Thursday, December 6, 2012

And up goes the Christmas tree!

I have to admit something here.  I have a bit of a controlling personality.  I like things my way.  And if everyone else did things my way, life would run much smoother.  But I found out that having kids can cure you of this disorder quite quickly because you now do things their way.  Oh, you can fool yourself into thinking you are in charge and making all the decisions, but it's not really true.  You choose foods that your kids will eat.  You decorate your house so the kids can't reach anything.  You exercise by pushing the kids in the stroller.  You play Uno instead of reading a book.  You put red socks on your kids because they love having red socks on.  You wear fuzzy red pajamas because your kids love cuddling with the fuzzy red pajamas.

I thought by now, I had overcome much of my controlling, perfectionist desires and started to embrace the fact that I am no longer in charge of much.  But then we got the Christmas decorations out and Davis wanted to help put them up.  He would grab whatever he could find out of the bin and put it in whatever random spot he thought it should go.  And then that creeping need to do it my way would sneak up on me and before I was even aware of it, I would say, "No, Davis!  That doesn't go there.  Give it to me and I will put it where it belongs."  Or, "No, Davis!  That will break!  Please don't . . . drop it."  Or, "No, Davis!  That is hideous.  Put it back in the bin."  And then I am pretty sure he was just trying to take things out of the bin as fast as he could and cover the living room with Christmas decorations.  It was not my finest mothering moment.  But the decorations are where I want them.

The next night we decided to get out the tree and decorate it.  By this time I had been able to contemplate  my issues and had decided to just . . . let it go.  I put all the ornaments that didn't need hooks out on the floor and let Davis put them wherever he wanted to.  I gave Darren the bag of hooks and the rest of the ornaments and told him to put hooks on whatever he thought should go on the tree and then hand them to Davis.  Darren was a little stumped.  Apparently my kids aren't the only ones who get  . . . directed . . . when decorating because he asked several times, "But which ornaments do you want on the tree?"  I told him to decide.  After a little while Darren said we were done, so we stopped putting on ornaments.  I added a few breakable balls on the top and adjusted a few clusters of ornaments, and viola!  A beautiful Christmas tree!  And everyone was happy.  (I have not yet mastered the art of taking pictures with Christmas tree lights, so please excuse the blurry photos that follow!)










1 comment:

Unknown said...

Your tree is absolutely beautiful! And your children will always remember the Christmas THEY decorated the tree!

Mom