A yearly tradition at the Hildebrandt household is to put up our Christmas tree the weekend immediately following the Thanksgiving holiday, as many others probably do.
Come hell or highwater we get that baby up and decorated preferably on Saturday but no later than Sunday after Turkey Day, no matter how daunting a task it can seem to be and how much I procrastinate and try to fend off the begging from the kiddies. The key is to never look them directly in the eye or next thing you know it your up to your elbows in those big plastic tubs trying to find a certain strand of white lights or that certain ornament you and your wife bought together during that first holiday season together which "has to be there, so just keep looking!".
When my kids were much younger, decorating the tree was always a much longer process as they would often take matters into their own hands and put ornaments on the tree where they wanted and which usually meant the tree, if left alone, would have looked like mom and dad were totally inebriated when they decorated that year. Thankfully Mommy would just smile and "fix" things while the kids weren't looking.
Now that they've gotten older, they understand the protocol fairly well ... which basically comes down to "it will go where Mom tells you it goes...and if it doesn't she'll fix it later.
I don't know how she does it. How she keeps tabs off all that is contained within the four large tubs that are tucked away in a crawl space under our main entry way, is beyond me. She has some sort of system that must have been ingrained in her from her own mother or some other higher power because when she starts pulling out all the tubs from the crawl space I see chaos, but within minutes of her assessing the situation I know all will be well.
My kids are still at the age where they enjoy decorating and help Mommy put the ornaments up and I rue the day they either get "too old" for that kind of thing or simply aren't around anymore to help us out because they've got their own family's tree to worry about.
Nonetheless, 2009 Operation Christmas Tree is now complete and the tree is as beautiful as ever and is sure to make the next 4-5 weeks much more festive. I completed my ritual of helping string the lights around the tree and making sure the ornament to branch ratio doesn't get above 1:1. Mission accomplished once again.
The only thing I dread about the whole experience is it seems like whenever we're done putting up the tree it seems like I blink my eyes and we're tucking the tubs away again for safe keeping until the next holiday season when we'll repeat the process all over again.
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