Decorating the tree....

... and it is chaotic.

Breakfast this morning for my mother-in-law's birthday - so... lots of drawing and clipping of pictures for her gift very early (and then some for another b-day party late day - a friend of E's). After some late night pick-up from after parties in pool houses and midday pick-up from sleepovers for our dance attendee, we settled in with cookies, hot chocolate and Christmas music to decorate our tree this afternoon. Of course, several shattered heirloom ornaments, one broken wooden tabletop decoration, and an oddly large number of light strings that have either halfway or entirely burned out later, and.... we do have ornaments on the tree - it is lit, and... the garland has been located.

This year, we happily found some old dreidels that Olivia made in school years ago and we had thought were lost (and I have been remiss in saying Happy Hanukkah for the past few days) - we discovered that an old wooden angel who used to sit on our porch when Enzo was a baby still lights - and we found remnants of an old nativity and some other decorations that were Santa-ish and / or glittery and, so, delighted the kids. For some reason, though, our one "sealed tight" bin did smell very musty, and it holds our beloved advent calender, tree skirt, and other items that have become little traditions in this house. All these years, and... this year.... musty??? Odd. We also need to locate the creamer from my Villeroy Boch Christmas coffee set (again, here to Europe and back again and this year... we can't find it???).

Anyway.... we are over the top ready for Christmas - glitter, lights, incense and more. Happy, happy :-).