Christmas Confession

Ok, so I cleaned the house yesterday...a usual weekend chore.  Looks pretty spiffy.  Finally got a mirror for the mantel so the funky "modern art" of the tv mount is gone and the holes it left are covered up...a year after we move in to this house.  Better late than never, right?

And as I started thinking about the next two weeks, I decided when I woke up this morning that today is as good a time as any to decorate for Christmas.  All right, all right.  Don't judge!  Next week my schedule is crazy, and I know perfectly well my mother will want help with her house.  I have three parties scheduled at my house the first weekend in December. 

So why not today?  Brian grumbled a little bit about getting the decorations out of the attic...something about taking one holiday at a time.  And believe me, I hate that Thanksgiving seems to get shortchanged these days, but I try to see it this way...Thanksgiving is the warm up for Christmas.  Family time and being together in a beautifully decorated house is important!  And the house looks very festive...or is beginning to.  I need to pick up a few more things to really get it in shape, but that's just one more reason to get everything out before the parties start...I need time to get the rest of my decorations.  (Not that Brian knows that yet...)

And I am giving Brian a reprieve from the outside lights until next weekend.  He seemed satisfied with that.  So while he watched the Military Channel, I decorated around him.  By 11 am, we were in full Tis-the-Season-mode.  And yes, I felt a little like that crazy blonde on the Target commercial...

It was bittersweet this year as I decorated.  This is our first Christmas without my grandparents.  With such a large family, no time of year meant more than this.  We savored our time together each year with my grandparents overseeing the festivities, even when they could no longer host or plan them. 

One of the things I received from their house was the handmade felt ornaments I made for their Christmas tree a few years ago.  There are about twenty of them, and I cried as I put them on our tree.  If their loss was not real to me yet, it certainly is now.  The ornaments comfort me in a way; my grandmother loved them.  I moved their picture into the living room so they could see the tree.  Weird? Maybe, but not even Brian's cancer affected me the way losing my grandparents has. 

And as much as I love this time of year (you should have seen how excited I was Friday night when I discovered that 103.7 had FINALLY started their Christmas music!), it is forever changed and I feel like I am still finding the way to make the most of it.  That's what Nonnie and Grandpa would want, I know. 

So, maybe I started the season a little early.  I just needed to find the love and peace of this time of year as soon as possible.