An Early Start

Every year, retailers push Christmas on us a little earlier. And every year, I complain about it. Ever heard of a holiday called T-h-a-n-k-s-g-i-v-i-n-g? Yes, I realize Thanksgiving may not be as big of a money maker as Christmas (except for grocery stores), but, c'mon. It's the pre-cursor to Christmas. It's the holiday that gets us thinking about family and friends and how much we love them. It's the holiday that makes us stop and think about how blessed we truly are...about how God has graciously given us so much. Counting our blessings leads us into the Christmas spirit. It makes us want to give back. God has blessed us with so much, why shouldn't we want to bless others? We need to take note and recognize this special holiday for what it is, giving thanks to God for all that we have and all He has done in our lives.


That being said........I've actually found myself "pushing" Christmas this year...just a little. I guess I'm just ready. Now, don't get me wrong. I am ALL ABOUT Thanksgiving. We are not forgetting Thanksgiving at our house. All month long, Jacob, Annabelle and I have been talking about Thanksgiving -- turkeys, pilgrims, Indians (Squanto, in particular), the Mayflower, being thankful, traditional Thanksgiving foods, etc... We LOVE Thanksgiving. But for some reason, I just couldn't wait to put up the Christmas tree.


So, our tree is up and decorated. It's the earliest it's ever been up at our house. I usually wait until the Thanksgiving festivities are over, but not this year. We set it up over the weekend and added decorations yesterday. I thought it might be fun for Jacob and Annabelle to help decorate, so I pulled out all the boxes of decorations and waited for naptime to end. Jacob was very enthusiastic about trimming the tree and immediately tore open boxes searching for his favorite ornaments to hang on the bare branches. Annabelle.....well......Annabelle's enthusiasm rivaled Jacob's, but she didn't care anything about hanging ornaments on that silly tree.



First, she dumped out several storage containers -- red, green, and silver Christmas balls...everywhere. Then she began taking them apart, one by one, removing the hooks and throwing them onto the floor where they got lost in the carpet. I attempted to divert her attention by showing her an ornament. She walked over to the Christmas tree and I taught her how to properly place an ornament on a branch. Jacob gave her a little lesson as well. Annabelle immediately ripped several ornaments off the tree and took off down the hall, laughing and squealing with delight. As I chased her through the house, hoping I could salvage at least a couple ornaments before they were destroyed, Jacob took off after me. "ANNABELLE!!!!!! WHY are you MESSING UP Christmas???" he yelled. "Can't you just be HAPPY???" My frustration level was at its peak, but hearing the complete exasperation in Jacob's voice made me giggle. His sister was "messing up Christmas" and he was going to do something about it!


As the afternoon progressed, the situation only got worse. Annabelle was dead-set on pulling off every ornament within her reach and Jacob was on a personal quest to save Christmas. The tone at our house was less like Christmas and more like World War III. After Annabelle climbed up onto the counter and broke the lid to my cherished snack jar (it came from my grandparents' house), I decided to call it a night...in terms of decorating. Whew.


As I swept up a million tiny shards of glass from the kitchen floor (the remains of my snack jar lid) and Jacob cried because "...now we don't have anything to keep our snacks in!", I debated even putting out anymore of our Christmas decorations. The tree has lights. Does it really need anything else? What about that Nativity set? Maybe it should just stay in the box this year. And that glass snowman platter? There's no way I'm setting that on the counter.


Well, today was a new day. I got up early and put the finishing touches on the tree. Jacob helped. Let's get real. Having a Christmas tree with no decorations was out of the question. I set up the nativity and put out that snowman platter (along with several other things). Annabelle slept until almost 11:00 this morning, allowing me plenty of time to decorate and store away all the now empty containers, not to mention, pick up all the hooks that she threw all over the floor.


Jacob couldn't wait to show his sister what we had done. He couldn't wait for her to see all the decorations, but he was also worried she would "mess up Christmas" again. Much to his surprise (and mine), we are well into the afternoon, and "Christmas" is still intact. A couple ornaments have disappeared throughout the day; we had a minor incident with some Christmas bears; and the time out corner has been visited several times......but don't worry, Jacob. Christmas is NOT messed up!


Besides.....it's not time for Christmas...yet. It's Thanksgiving. REMEMBER??? :)