'tis the season

Every year I tell myself that next year, I will have all of my Christmas shopping completed by the first week of December. I will have our Christmas photographs taken and all of our Christmas cards written and mailed out by the second week of December. On the work front, the only paperwork that will be required is a time sheet that I need to complete indicating the last two weeks of the year, I'll be taking off on vacation.

But every year, it seems that none of those things happen.

Instead, around the third week of December, I find myself totally buried in "other" activities when I remember that I still have a tree to buy and decorate, Christmas photographs to take, Christmas cards to write, presents to pick out, work to do and the only way to successfully cope is to bake cookies!


The good news is we do have a Christmas tree.

(And four dozen gingerbread.)

It's a five-foot number that I picked up one day last week while Charlie was out of town on a business trip. I had contemplated buying two trees, a smaller "children's tree" that they could decorate ... and a larger tree that would hold all of our heirloom ornaments. But once I saw what the children did to their smaller tree, I reconsidered the larger tree.

Each and every ornament on their tree has been carefully placed, removed, placed, tossed, kicked around, placed, removed, placed, removed, strung up on random cabinets throughout the house, placed all on one branch, removed and tucked in to assorted bags at least once.

But the kids love that tree.

It's become a ritual for them to dress up in various clothes (or not) and re-decorate the tree every day. They will hold hands and dance around it wearing bathing suits or a magic cape and hat. I doubt there is a Christmas tree that has been handled decorated as heavily as our tree. It will be a Christmas miracle if it has any needles remaining come December 25.

Saturday, I took the girls to see the Nutcracker.


We were joined by the "girls" of two other triplet families. There are four of us moms who have been getting together since our triplets were infants, and as nice as it is to see our children grow up together - it's even nicer to have the friendship of women who face many of the same trials and tribulations.

When my girls saw how all the little children clustered under Mother Ginger's dress, they tried to recreate the scene while we were standing in line for the restroom. One minute I'm talking to my friend, the next minute, I am wondering why my dress is hoisted up to my hips and my girls are standing beneath it.

We had a great time and are excited about yet another new Christmas tradition.

Although, I really do think that white tights on men should be outlawed.