Merry Christmas

We are having some holiday difficulties at our house. It seems we are skipping over Thanksgiving and moving on towards bigger and better holidays! Last night the Madagascar Christmas special was on and the kids loved it! Dan and Chloe love to watch the original cartoon 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' over and over. They both cry a little when I put it away. Today they decided it was time to fish their movie out of the boxes in the basement. I was so not ready for the mess and stress of putting up the Christmas tree. Last year our tree lights gave out and because we have a pre-lit tree, we had to remove all the lights that were practically surgically in place... So, I knew I would have to sting the lights on the tree because I didn't do what I swore I would do and buy a tree on clearance after Christmas last year. I pulled the tree out of the box and strait off the bat, one of the bottom branches fell off. This should have been an omen! But I persevered and removed the remaining bottom row of branches. This took tools from Dan's tool box and a few minor swear words! This is how far I got:

This is how far I got before the dancing and whining, the begging and pleading began. "Can we put the ornaments on yet, Mom?" I repeated myself with all the calm of a 1950's mother {who never raised her voice} that they have to try to be patient and wait until all of the lights are on until about the 2000th time they danced and begged. I finally got half way up the tree and somehow ran out of lights. Now, I admit that I am trying to string the lights carefully so that the wire doesn't show. But I removed the bottom most row of the largest branches and all of the lights we used last year only fit on half of the tree... All that I could hope was that I have a box of lights still in the basement that Dan missed. No such luck. I had to buy more lights and hope to finish stringing up the tree to put these poor children out of their misery!
This is a picture of Dan {hiding}, sitting on the heater looking at his Christmas lights & eating candy. Even though the blanket has turned into a quilt and the lights have become slightly pornographic, there is just something wonderful about Christmas Traditions!!!