Last weekend we went out and got our Christmas tree in spite of my aversion to starting Christmas before Thanksgiving has gotten a chance to recover. Due to a number of circumstances (Thanksgiving coming so incredibly late this year + Matthew’s mom being in town) we headed out to Simmon’s Christmas Tree Farm on the very first day that they were open for the season. This meant that we had the prime pick of the place, and pretty much instantly saw our perfect tree while descending from our complimentary hayride (all of this is to say, if you would like to get your own tree, you ought to go to Simmons).
You can read all about how great it was over on the Idiots’Blog if you’d like. It was a pretty great day.
At any rate, we got home after a long and exhausting day on Saturday, and told Alden and Kato and August we would do the decorating on Sunday.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t quite thought things through. The tradition around here is to bake butter cookies to decorate the tree with. Baking butter cookies is an all-day affair that begins with having several pounds of softened butter on hand. We woke on Sunday morning to find we were already behind, what with not having the several pounds of butter, softened or not. We put the lights on the tree and told the kids we would have to hold off on decorating until next weekend, when soft butter and firm resolve were more within reach. They were very disappointed.
Several times over the course of the afternoon, we were asked when we would be decorating the tree. After continual and relentless disappointments, the kids finally took matters into their own hands.
Without cookies or other ornaments on hand, they improvised (they get this from me):
All of August’s colorful stacking blocks went on the tree, as did Lamby (sometimes known as Apple Dumpling), whose cheeks flash a jolly red glow while he sings a song if you press the button on his belly (very festive):
After having run out of toys with natural hanging loops, they resourcefully found some Swiffer duster handles to complete the look:
I’m mostly astonished that we own more than one Swiffer duster handle, given how infrequently/never I Swiffer.
Though I think we’ll still do the cookies this weekend, I have to say that I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for the new ornaments. Perhaps this will have to become a holiday tradition. Here’s to many more years of rogue decorating!