Happy 2016!

Oh, hey. Trees.

While some people took advantage of the unseasonably warm holiday and immediately tucked the sparkle into storage, I plan to keep a firm grip on every possible Christmas decoration for as long as possible. If you want to risk your life, go ahead and tear down a tree or two. 

I'm mostly not kidding. I super love the sparkle and shine when we're looking at the depths of the dark of winter, so I won't be ready to be unlighted until about March. I need my light, yo.

As I was pondering how much fight I'm prepared to muster when the conversations about it all going away start, it occurred to me that I haven't posted photos of the trees in this space for a while. I think maybe three years? That's borderline unacceptable, so let's take a tour, shall we?

Starting with Mila's room, her tree is slowly filling in. For both of the girls, I add one super nice ornament and one ornament of something they like (read: tacky and potentially embarrassing later in life) each year. We also throw in ornaments from places we visit and any other random things that happen to make sense in the moment.

This year's "something she likes" for Mila was a My Little Pony and a Minion. She may not remember this Christmas, but I will remember how much she loved "ponnies and minuns".

Across the hall in Alexis' room, things are much further along. In a sea of pink and purple, you'll find everything from Elvis to Dora.

We added a bunch of Elvis ornaments this year, plus she has her New York City ornament. Her favorite new one, though, was a cheap little thing I grabbed without much thought.

Mila has the same ornament.

If you wander to the guest bedroom, the rainbow tree will call out to you and say, "I'M HAPPY!" I mean, is this the happiest tree ever or what?

I need to find more purple ornaments to fill in with, but so far haven't had luck. 

In the master bedroom, the only tree is the sock monkey tree that I started last year. It's not full just yet, but it's coming along nicely.

There are two trees in the loft. The first one is the old Winnie the Pooh tree.

It's covered with a few dozen old Pooh ornaments.

It's neighbor is the snowman tree.

It has about a dozen glass snowman ornaments on it, with more set to join the fun next year. If I can find any on clearance, that is.

Downstairs is home to the playroom and the two trees that reside in that space. The first is the ugliest Barbie tree that has every uglied our city. It's so ugly.

Most of the ornaments are actual Barbie dolls because we already had them and the lazy runs deep over here. Also, I'm not totally committed to the idea of a Barbie tree, so we'll see what happens in the coming years.

Also in the playroom is this year's new kid, the Beanie Boo tree.

I basically stole all of Alexis' and Mila's stuffed Beanie Boos for that tree. Next year I'll do a better job of attaching them to the tree.

In the dining room are a  ::cough:: few more trees. There's the Nightmare Before Christmas tree.

It is the most magnificently awful pink tinsel tree. It needs more ornaments, but PINK. TINSEL. TREE.

Another dining room tree is the Boyd's tree. I have officially declared it done since it's now too hard to find the ornaments.

There's a tree made out of a string of lights, too.

And then there is my favorite tree. It doesn't have a theme -- it's where all of the ornaments we make end up. It also holds the ornaments acquired during vacations, ornaments representing all of our pets, and the random things that I love enough to want to put on a tree.

This is the tree that Mila spends a lot of time looking at because it's the tree that houses the motion ornaments. Little things move and make all sorts of magic, like these woodland creatures that dance in a circle.

There are a couple of trees in the Man Cave, but I didn't bother to photograph them since, well, LAZY. One is a silver fiber-optic tree that is delightfully tacky. The other is a short tree (3 feet, maybe?) that is home to Penguins and Pirates ornaments. Some day there will be enough of them to split into two trees. Hopefully.

The living room has two trees. One is a tacky green tinsel tree.

Most of the ornaments are fairies and such.

And then there is the "main" tree. It was doing really well when it had presents under it, but then we opened the gifts and Mila decided to start trying to pull everything off of the tree. So. It's a little messier than usual. OH WELL.

If we're being honest, there are other trees scattered around our house, but that's most of them. It's the important ones, anyway.

And that, my friends, is how it came to be that my girls decided that more than ten trees is just something you are supposed to do at Christmas. Why would anybody want to enjoy just one? 

Such a Potterhead

If you look past the obvious :glitter:sparkle:pink:omg:explosion:, Alexis and I are very much alike. We're clarinet-playing book nerds who love sports and writing. 

Oof. That hurt to write. Those labels? I hate those labels. I hate all labels, really. I prefer to be that person who can't really be described or categorized. I like to be all of the things but none of the things. Don't call me a working mom or a blogger or anything like that. I wear a lot of hats in any given day and I long ago decided to tear the labels off of every single one of them.

Alexis, though. Along with the obvious :glitter:sparkle:pink:omg:explosion:, that child lives for labels. Maybe it's part of growing up or maybe it's just her, but she is constantly seeking ways to categorize herself.

For what it's worth, she can only be in one category at a time.

That's the reason behind her recent musing about quitting cheer. In her mind, you can't be all in with dance AND continue to be a cheerleader. When you hear me arguing with her that she is so going to be in cheer, know that it's because I know she's lying to herself. She may think she'd be happy with just dance, but really she'd last about two weeks before she realized the error of her ways. Fortunately, it will work itself out because cheer starts while dance is out-of-session. It will be a one thing at a time situation, so she'll change her mind like some people change underwear.

(Do you know how much physical pain is involved with ME telling MY KID that she needs to keep considering being in cheer? Do you know how much I would looooove to not deal with it anymore? Alas, that kid's happy runs deep when cheering. Too deep.) 

It was probably a month ago that Alexis declared herself a Very Serious Dancer and started not wanting to do anything else. Forget basketball. That was SO second grade. Cheer isn't important. Of course. There could be no caring about band. All of the things are lame.

Just when she had everything all perfectly lined up and had herself neatly organized into categories, along came Harry.

Potter, that is. Harry Potter.

It was early December when Alexis checked the first book out at the library. It was yesterday that she finished the third book. She's cruising through pages fast as fast can be and falling deeper into that label with every passing second.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

Which, that's all fine. I understand the repercussions of having a book nerd, after all.

But it did make for an interesting Christmas. I finished shopping for Alexis early. Early November, I think. There was a lot of Elvis, plenty of clothes, and a few electronic items that we knew she wanted. 

There was no Harry.

But then she fell down that rabbit hole at the 11th hour and left me scrambling to get something under the tree. I did manage, for what it's worth. It wasn't a lot, but there were a few little things.

But not all of her gifts were Potter-related.

And Alexis was very not amused by that fact.

One label I'm willing to accept is that one that rhymes with "procrastinator." I was going to find a word that actually rhymes with "procrastinator," but then decided to do it later because why would I do anything any sooner than absolutely necessary? I'd rather procrastinate.

But I don't procrastinate buying Christmas gifts.

And there you go. THAT is what being proactive gets you -- a kid who is cranky because she didn't get what she didn't know she wanted until basically Christmas week.