Decorating

Trying to decorate for Christmas this year has been trying to say the least. It seems simple, I have a simple theme Red and Gold...at Christmas my Italian comes out...(at least I don't have flocked wallpaper!) It was anything but simple for me this year. First, as you may know, my house was not built with a Christmas tree spot. I though I could put it in the living room window in the front of the house. Our old house had the living room in the back of the house so you couldn't see the tree in the window, for some reason I want the tree visible from the window. So I put it there and you couldn't walk by the tree to get to the playroom very easily. I could just see the girls crashing into the tree a billion times with strollers, buggies and anything else they were pushing or carrying. So I decided I would push it into the corner. It would be near the window and at least partially visible from the window...this blocked the entire doorway to the playroom. Back to the window it went. There was another corner in the living room I could have tried but it 1) wouldn't have been in the front window at all and 2) it would have partially blocked the doorway to the kitchen, so it wasn't going to work. I pushed the love seat into the room more and now we can walk by and get to the playroom...of course there is no escaping Charlotte's tail but oh well. Second, there is the fact the there isn't enough room between the actual door on the house and the storm door for my wreath. We have a red and gold wreath made out of giant jungle bells. As our last house was not able to have a storm door I never ran in to this issue before. It is also not advisable to hang it on the storm door as they are giant metal bells and I can't see it being a good idea for them to bang on the glass of the storm door all month. So I had to get a new smaller wreath. Not as easy as it sounds, I bought and returned several until I found one that was the right colors and the right size, it reminded me of something a woodland fairy from A Mid-Summer Nights Dream would wear. I really like it but it just didn't look right against a mauve door (imagine that) so I moved that inside. So I had to keep searching for this "perfect" wreath. Then I found a smaller gold jungle bell wreath...I tried to add red jingle bells to it but, come on, I'm just really not crafty. It looks okay, it will be better next year when the door is black. Third, I apparently had no recollection of what Christmas stuff I had to put on my mantel (I hadn't seen it in 2 years remember??). I thought I had a bunch of nutcrackers...I had 6. I thought they were all different...they were either Uncle Sam or Beefeaters. I had gotten 2 new ones this year, little princesses...they went with nothing. I put it all up and it was so bare...I added lit garland, that didn't help. I added tiny sparkly gold balls...you couldn't even see them. I added giant gold and red sparkly balls...it helped a little. I added more sparkly things AND hung my woodland fairy wreath over it and it was better. I got new red and gold sparkly stockings and now it looks pretty nice. Finally, there is outside. THERE ARE NO OUTLETS OUT THERE!!!!! How are you supposed to hang lights with no outlets?!?!?! Okay, I exaggerate, there are outlets...in the backyard. I don't want to run 4 million feet of extension cord to get lights to the front. George hooked the lights together so we can plug in in the garage. We couldn't get them up on the roof but that was more of a timing issue than anything else (at least that what George said). I don't remember decorating being this way. Of course the last time I decorated my house both of the girls took naps eliminating the need for snack/homework/hug/read me a book/craft breaks. When they are BOTH in school next year that should help. So it took over a week and there were many moments when I thought Xanax was in order but I think it came out okay...

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