Deck the Halls...

Out of all the festive times throughout the year, Christmas is definitely our favourite. We love the atmosphere, the candle light, the decorations, the aroma of freshly baked biscuits and the scents of pine needles, frankincense and gingerbread.

It’s that special time of year again and we are busy getting the living room ready, tidying up and evicting crates full of toys into the garage to make space for the tree. Then finally the moment is here and – eagerly awaited by the children – we get the Christmas decorations down from the attic.

Originally our job, decorating the tree got gradually taken over by our children - and once the fairy lights are in place, we let the boys loose with the decorations. (Supervised while they were little, because of glass decorations and small parts.)

Now here comes the complicated bit – while I’m generally not very bothered where things are in the house (I have what I call a high ‘chaos tolerance’) – at Christmas this is quite different and I tend to be rather particular as to where and how the decorations are to be put up.

So, to let the children take over wasn’t quite so easy for the first few times. Suspiciously I watched from a close distance where things were put – plotting in my mind to discreetly rearrange things once the children were asleep. And I admit that occasionally I tried to talk them out of new ideas that seemed quite too experimental for my taste, only to feel guilty straight afterwards for interrupting their creative workflow…

Things can look a bit wonky thereafter, I admit it, but it’s absolutely worth it for the enjoyment they get out of it. The joy in their faces, and the pride for accomplishing such a great job is well worth accepting that things are not quite like I had planned them out.

P.S: In the meantime I’m glad for any help I can get, and this year I have actually managed to agree to a major ‘design change’ to our tree – red tinsel instead of gold chains…that’s quite brave of me, isn’t it?