Decorating

Happy Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord! (Otherwise known as the last day of the Christmas season, technically speaking.) This morning at mass our pastor asked for a show of hands as to how many people had already taken down their Christmas trees. When half the congregation did just that, he shouted: “Go put them back up!”

Ours is still standing – a withered, crispy version of its former self – not because I’m an ace at following the liturgical calendar, but because I do nothing early and almost nothing on time. Last year I think it was (cough, cough) March before we got all our Christmas decorations down. (I’m hiding behind my hands here. Can you tell?)

Anyway, on Facebook I promised folks a little Christmas tour of our home and I hate to break my promises – I really do. So here are some poorly-executed pictures of my incomplete Christmas decorating, just under the wire.

Well, I did finish the tree. I think it sat for at least a week before I decorated it, but decorate it I did. Lovely. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed looking at the thing every time I go up and down the stairs – droopy, crunchy, and falling apart though it is.

I took so few Christmas tree pics this year that I’m resorting to showing you one with a shower curtain sticking out from below it. (Makes for a practical tree skirt!)

(Cheating here — this is a pic from last year. But I promise it looks pretty much the same!)

Unlike our previous two Christmases, I did actually get out all of our Christmas decorations this year, and I did actually arrange things on all (four) of our first-floor mantles. (Win, right?) What I didn’t do, though, is artfully arrange fresh greens among the décor and lace them with lights. Sigh… wouldn’t that have been beautiful?

(I know, I’m being trivial. But my mother always does a great job of decorating for Christmas and for me, that greens + lights thing is what makes it. Sit me in front of one of those softly-lit Christmas-scapes with a glass of eggnog and I’m one happy camper.)

Anyway, here are our mantles, sans lighted greenery.

As to how we celebrated the season(s) itself, I feel like we took a tiny little baby step forward from last year’s Christmas, but we were still nowhere near where I’d like to be. (To be clear, I don’t aspire to have the overachiever’s dream Christmas; I long for Advent and Christmas seasons in which all of our rooms are comfortably useable, nobody’s running around stressed out, and we get to take the time to sit and enjoy the specialness of the seasons.)

This year our dining room was out of commission for the holidays because it became the dumping ground for everything I couldn’t find time to deal with. (So sad, kind of stressful.) We didn’t do that cool open-a-book-for-every-day-of-Advent thing, we didn’t get to any Christmas baking, we didn’t do any crafts, we didn’t hit the Christmas parade, we didn’t even all head out to look at Christmas lights as a family. (Boo-hoo.) We sent out our cards late.

But we did send out cards.

We did an Advent calendar and we worked on teaching the boys the Hail Mary with a daily (er, we tried to do it daily) recitation while pulling a link off the Advent chain my son made at school. We made it to the Santa breakfast and also to see Santa at the mall. We watched Christmas movies and read Christmas books. On Christmas morning, we ate a “picnic” breakfast in front of the tree and the fire. (That was particularly lovely, but a little confusing to the boys: “Why are we eating on the floor?”)

We did Christmas gifts that were simpler than some, more excessive than others: Santa brought each boy a toy, a puzzle, and a book. The boys each gave one gift to each other and we gave them each a few more. Then of course the grandparents did what grandparents do.

My own favorite gifts are shown here: a beautiful art print from my sweet husband (I love livestock) and a framed series of baby photos of my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and me, given to me by my grandmother.

We had a little sickness, a little rushing, a little not-getting-to-everything, but it really was a lovely Christmas here in our family. I hope yours was just as nice!

Before I was married, whenever I moved into a new place I felt like I needed to get settled right away. No sooner had the moving truck pulled away, than I’d be unpacking boxes and figuring out where to hang things on the walls. But now that I have a husband and two (soon-to-be-three) small children, I no longer have the freedom to do what I want in that respect. I’ve got to, you know, make sure my household actually functions before I can decorate it. And even once we’re functioning normally, the decorating and unpacking of pretty stuff has to take a back seat to the care of little ones and the availability of my built-in handyman (a.k.a. husband).

So, a year-and-a-half after moving into this house, we still have a long way to go before it’s arranged the way I want it. We (and by “we” I really mean “Brennan”) have painted three rooms, re-finished the floor in another room, rolled out two new rugs (no carpeting in this house! zilch!), and hung precisely one art print. (We do have a few other things on the walls, but only where nails already were. Eventually, we’ll likely move those things around.)

With every step forward, I experience a little thrill of delight.

So this week? Thrilling. Work on converting the boys’ haphazard nursery into a Big Boy Room has commenced! Here are some “before” pics. Note the sickly green walls with nothing hung on them, the still-packed boxes and bins, and the bare floor.

This past weekend I took the boys up to my parents’ house to give Brennan a little space while he worked on the room. He completed the drywall in the closet, he moved things, he cleaned, he painted, and now…

{pretty}

Isn’t it pretty? Okay, maybe it’s not actually {pretty} to anybody but me, but I just about swoon every time I walk into that room now, even though it is still full of messy tarps and other painting gear. And even though all the furniture (which will be moved to the new nursery before long) is still shoved to the middle of the room. The new color (Valspar Oat Bran) just seems so much fresher and calmer and more dignified to me. I can’t wait to see how it looks with the boys’ new beds and bedding and rug and art prints and reading chair and toys. I! Can’t! Wait!

{happy}

Besides the paint color (which, in case you didn’t pick up on it, makes me so happy), there are all the other elements of the room that are so close to coming together. There are the beds. (Update: Brennan’s now acquired the stuff he needs to build the sideboards. Hopefully he’ll get them together soon.) There is the rug (fluffy! soft! wonderful to play on!) and the bedding (bright but not babyish!) There are a couple of fun art prints (though there’s a good bit more to do in that department.) There’s the big, comfy reading chair that my parents sent home with us this weekend. {Happy, happy!}

{funny}

The boys and I (especially the boys) had some good fun at my parents’ house this weekend. My dad, who is exceptionally good with kids (we used to joke that he’s like the pied piper in grocery stores: all the little kids would ditch their parents and follow him around if they could), was a great sport as usual. He wrestled and tickled and played ball and allowed himself to be buried under pillows, jumped on, and half-smothered by his excitable little grandsons. That last part was so {funny} that I could barely bring myself to stop the boys, I was laughing so hard. (I was doing that whole silent laugh thing, where you can barely catch your breath, let alone speak.) It was good for all of us, that fun time with the grandparents. (And cousins! My nieces came over too, leading my older son to proclaim them “Da BEST!”)

Grandpa triumphs!

{real}

Just in case the glimpses of spattered paint tarps and jumbled furniture weren’t {real} enough for you, here are some more photos of the fallout from the big painting project. I don’t care, though! It could be five times worse (don’t tell Brennan) and I wouldn’t care. Because the boys’ room is being worked on! And progress is being made! And soon the boys will have a completed room, designed just for them, with plenty of comfortable space to play.

I’m so excited.

Be sure to stop by Like Mother, Like Daughter to get a look at other’s contentment this week. Though I’m sure none of it is nearly as exciting as tarps and paint cans and a new color on little boys’ walls. Consider yourself warned.

These Walls

Sharing stories from within the walls of my home; encouraging discourse on the wider world outside them.

Under The Wire: Christmas 2014

Big Boy Room in Progress: {pretty, happy, funny, real} Vol. 10