And the stockings were hung..... in a storage unit in town

{a lowly string of Christmas lights, can never compare to mother nature's Christmas lights}

I'm pretty confident that my mom misses me.

No really, it's been 20 years since I lived in her house, but I'm going to put some money down, that come Christmas time, mom is wishing I was back home and 15 years old.

As a kid, I would be practically chomping at the bit trying to pull out Christmas decorations the day after Halloween, but mom always insisted no sooner than the day after Thanksgiving. Every year, the weekend after Thanksgiving would be spent outside in a thick coat and mittens, checking every bulb like a scene out of a Clark Griswold movie.

The decorations were stored in the storage closet under the staircase. Now, this was a double staircase so there was a lot of room in there. It was also packed absolutely to the gills to the point of having to open the door carefully to make sure you didn't die under an avalanche of useless stuff that was... well.. useless.

Guess what?
The Christmas stuff was stored in the BACK. Sometimes in the back around the corner. This meant completely dismantling the closet to get to the 5 or 6 boxes of Christmas decor. Thinking back, I still remember moving no less than 20-25 times, a basket that had fur in it. Mom explained tht this was some fur that dad had put on the dashboard of his old car. No doubt mom said "oh hells no!" and banished it to the closet forever. Who knew my dad was into faux fur dashboards?

I wonder if it's still there.

So anyway, I would unpack the closet (and then REPACK THE CLOSET - and then vice versa when we put them away. *headdesk*), and spend the weekend making sure everything just perfect. Tree in front of the picture window, fake snow on top of the TV. The nativity carefully displayed on mom's favorite oak end table.

Did I mention that I wrapped all the presents?
Sometimes I WRAPPED MINE TOO.

Mom had it so easy.

So maybe in this process I burned myself out. Maybe? Maybe if I had someplace easy to store MY STUFF I'd be more excited about decorating? Yeah... no.

I have officially passed the baton. Tanner likes to decorate and is my official light hanger upper and puller downer. I bought him several strings of LED lights on Black Friday. Kid has it easy, no need to check every bulb crap.

I'm going to ease him into carefully arranging my vintage toys under my shiny brite tree and teach him the art of wrapping his own gifts.

He won't know what hit him.
Ka POW!@#!