The door had hardly closed on our last Thanksgiving guest when I was ready to get out our Christmas tree. I had found it on Craigslist a few weeks earlier and was anxious to see how it looked. Once we finally got it up and all fluffed out it I thought it looked great. There was only one small problem. It is pre-lit with white lights, which I prefer, but Seth wanted "colorful Christmas lights." He said it over and over. In fact just last night as I was taking him to bed he was staring at the tree and sure enough as soon as we got to the top of the stairs he said, "I like colorful Christmas lights". Way to make me feel bad. Our old tree actually has multi-colored lights so I may have to break down and set it up in the loft for him.
On Friday morning we ran way too many errands in the morning so everybody was ready to just hang out at home for the afternoon. I thought it would be a great idea to string popcorn and cranberries to use as a garland for our tree. I put on my Christmas CDs, popped some popcorn and got busy. Seth and Caleb were both pretty intrigued. They couldn't quite figure out what the cranberries were; cherry tomatoes?, grapes?, something to squish with your hands? Seth kept asking about my "shiny thing" (the needle). I actually let him help me string a few of the cranberries. He liked sliding them down the thread. Then Seth started asking me what my list was. At first I thought he meant what I wanted for Christmas but when I answered that way he didn't seem satisfied. Finally I asked it back to him and he told me my list was "five popcorns and one cranberry" He had to come back several times and either ask me again or tell me himself. I strung, and strung and strung all afternoon. At one point I was taking a break and googled how much garland I would need and I found out most recommend between eight and nine feet per foot of tree. My tree is nine feet tall so that would mean I needed between 72 and 81 feet, yikes! I was a little discouraged but I had already spent so much time on this project that I decided to persevere. I am glad I did because it looks pretty nice and it was much cheaper than spending $7.99 a string for the garland at Target that I liked.
For the decorations we decided to steal an idea we got from my mom. When Seth was one we went to my parents house for Christmas. My parents were a little worried about Seth taking the ornaments off (I can't imagine why they would think he might do such a thing) so they had the great idea to hang Mother's cookies on the bottom part of the tree so he could take them off and eat them. We waited til after the kids went to bed and since I was still stringing popcorn (yes it took me that long) Danno tied ribbon on all the cookies. I suggested he put them in a Tupperware container we usually put cookies in after he finished. I forgot about one little detail. Caleb knows exactly what that container is for. As soon as he saw it on the kitchen island the next morning he wanted a cookie. Danno explained that they were for the tree and surprisingly he and Seth accepted that they weren't for eating and were pretty excited to hang them up. Danno told Seth to go wake me up so we could get started. He must have gotten a little distracted on the way upstairs because he burst into my room and shouted "I want to play Star Wars" Once I stumbled out of my room Danno straightened us out and we got started. The front two feet of the tree got very well covered by Seth and Caleb so we had to surreptitiously remove a few and help them reach a bit higher. The boys had a great time.
Our three day decorating project was finally complete. Now I need to get busy and get some presents to put under there.
3 comments:
What a very cute tree and a good idea. Seth just makes me laugh and laugh. I can't believe you had the dedication to string popcorn like that. Wow!! You are inspiring.
Love this post Kirstin. Seth is so smart about the "list," and I was really laughing about him forgetting about decorating the tree and wanting Star Wars instead. :) Your effort was well worth it for the cute tree!
Wow! That's seriously a lot of stringing for the tree. It looks really nice though! You're way more creative than I was this year. Once again- love craigslist! We bought ours off there last year. :)
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