I'm sure I mention this every year, but I like to decorate for Christmas. It comes from my mom. Every year our house back home, looks like Santa Claus exploded. I do my best to continue this tradition here in the south.
A number of years ago, my parents came to visit for the first time, just before Christmas. My mom and I had a great time picking out decorations for the house. Dad just looked at tools and then waiting by the til with his credit card. It was great fun!
As a result, we have lots of decorations to put up. We did invest in a new tree a year or so ago, since the one mom and dad bought eventually broke. We tried to patched it together and use it for a couple of more years, but it had gotten a distinctive lean to the left about two thirds of the way up. Each year it got a little worse. Looking at it made me sad. I guess I'm not much of a Charlie Brown Christmas guy.
At any rate, we have a good time decorating and I throw in a few pizzas to keep everyone motivated until the end. I used to be a lot more particular about how the decorations looked when I lived here (my OCD always kicked in), but now that Isabel and I decorate at our apartment as well, I give the guys a pretty free hand here. Mostly anyhow....I may still move a few things around on the tree, so my head doesn't feel like it's going to explode every time I look at it. Seriously....how many times do I have to explain that you don't hang three Christmas balls on the same branch?!
Here are a few pictures so you can understand the controlled (more or less) chaos that takes place...
And a few of Isabel, Andres and I wrapping presents. We usually start nicer than we finish. But we do our best...mostly... =)
And of course it was clear who was the goodest throughout the year....
It's always fun! At least this year we weren't wrapping gifts at 4 AM on Christmas Eve. Another tradition my mother gave me. That's happened a few times with Andres and I over the years... =)
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