Decking the Halls

"You need a woman in your life."

That was my friend's response to a picture of my Christmas decorations. My response cannot be published. Christmas is extremely important to me, especially now that I have a child. I used to send Santa schematics of toys that I wanted the elves to make for me. Every year, I'd put the old beat-up white Christmas tree together by myself, unravel the decades-old tinsel, and hang long-past-their-prime ornaments on the tree. No child has ever sympathized more with Charlie Brown than this guy.

[Cue the violins]
*sniff sniff* I even remember the year that no one came home when they said they would to light the tree with me. *sniff, sob, sniff* That was the year I sat on the floor with a radio looking for Christmas carols, but found Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You instead. So goodbye. Please, don't cry. We both know I'm not what you need. And IIIIIII...
[End violins]

It was in that moment of despair that, deep within the recesses of my soul, a maniacal elf was born. I swore promised took a blood oath vowed that when I grew up I would have kids and my house would look like the North Pole. A few things that I didn't count on:
It costs a lot of money to go full North Pole
My daughter is three, so her enthusiasm is about 98% less than mine
I don't really have an eye for decorating, coloring, crafts, or organization

But I'm not gonna let a little thing like that stop me. I bought $50 worth of decorations from The Dollar Store, and a nice 7ft tall tree from Target. I put lights up in the window--the fancy kind that move in a pattern. I let my daughter put on the window decals, which kinda spell out HELP ME depending on how you look at them. I have Christmas cookie jars (no cookies yet, but we'll get there), a snow globe, some jingle bells for the door, a bow...A whole lot of stuff. I even cut out construction paper in the shape of trees, candy canes and ornaments, which I let my daughter glue together so that we could put them on the wall. We're doing it big, but at Black Friday prices.

So while it may not be the prettiest thing you'll see, I think we're really in the holiday spirit here at the North Pole Satellite Location.

[caption id="attachment_3740" align="alignnone" width="225"] It's like knocking on Santa's door.[/caption]