It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

We had Kara this last weekend, so we decided to make it our final "Let's Get Ready for Christmas" weekend. Well...sort of. JP has been quietly getting the house ready for the holiday. She had me bring in the boxes of holiday decorations a couple of weeks ago and then filled the house with a tastefully chosen (and carefully placed) variety of our traditional decorations. She had me put up the outside lights the previous weekend. So, the only thing left, really, was the Christmas tree. We waited until Kara could join in on the selection and then the decoration.

We decided to make it a tiny bit of an event and took the girls (DD and Kara) to see The Golden Compass, a film that has, you may have heard, generated a bit of controversy. *I* quite enjoyed it and will go into more detail in a later post.

After the film, we went to a tree lot sponsored by a local church, picked the one we liked, and went home to decorate it. All told, I have to confess that it was the easiest tree decoration I've known in a very long while. In the past, there has been a tendency for frustration to creep in. If you've ever been in that boat, you know that it's a little more than "awkward" to try to decorate a Christmas tree when everyone's frustrated and pissed off.

We had none of that this year; instead, we were like a well oiled (and trusting) machine. It was (dare I say it?) fun! (Sorry, but I still remember the Year of the Tree that Wouldn't Stand Upright Properly.)

Now, we have enough ornaments to decorate more than one tree and we all (yes, the four of us) kind of knew when we'd put just the right number on the tree. And, each of us kind of clued in and noticed when the tree had just the right number of ornaments. No more. No less. For me, it was a very cool experience.

After decorating the tree, the girls each wanted to read a Christmas story, so JP and I dutifully listened while DD read The Polar Express and Kara read A Penguin Named Osbert (which appears to have been renamed since the copy we have was published). There was much laughter, giggling, and silliness. The girls loved it.

Even Dog got into the act, as you can see from the photo (which shows him licking DD's feet...to many giggles).

It was a very bittersweet experience, though, for JP and I. You see, we each checked our mobiles when the film was over and we had both received calls from "Sarah" (DD's step-mom), calls that were placed scant minutes apart. While the girls and I were decorating the tree, JP followed up and learned that "Jim" (DD's biological father) had suffered a cardiac event and was in the hospital. Thus, JP and I ran interference by keeping the girls' experience light, amusing, and cheerful until the full details were known.

More on that...tomorrow.

Photo credit: Me.