Early Is A Good Thing

Well we usually don't even decorate, especially if we are feeling particularly humbug-ish or old lady-ish. However, this year we decided not to be a couple of old fogies. So, a couple of weeks ago when Janet was in the attic for some other reason, we took down the decorations. Now, first of all, we have gotten rid of a lot of our stuff. We found that we just didn't use everything and it felt very, very excessive. And second of all, there is a woman where I work who goes all out with her decorating and we thought she just might enjoy having our stuff. We were right because it was a thrill for her to receive it and a thrill for us to give it to her.
And so yesterday, we decided that we would put up ONLY the tree. Our tree is an artificial, pre-lighted tree--the easier the better for us because the lights were ALWAYS a great source of frustration for one of the people living in this house (not me). So we took the tree out of the plastic garbage can we store it in and set it up in a new place....the little cherry chest between the kitchen and living room. We figured that way it could be seen in both the living room and the kitchen and the dining room, which is attached to the kitchen.
Well, we were having so much fun that after we set up the tree, we decided to decorate it. It was so simple this year, it amazed us. We don't know if it's because we are simplifying in each and every way and that maybe it was our new attitude. Or maybe it was because we didn't have to crawl in the attic, get everything down, and then decorate after we were exhausted. At any rate, we had Christmas music on the iPod dock, a sleeping dog on the couch, and decorated not one tree, but two. We had a little flocked, unlighted tree out for another reason and just decorated it too with the smallest ornaments. We are so happy to have this done prior to our Thanksgiving trip. Now we are ready for the season.