It actually was a lot easier than I had envisioned it to be. For some reason, I was remembering decorating from Christmases Past as being hard work and taking all day. But not this year! Maybe because I was a woman on a mission – you see, I was trying to get it all done during Munchkin’s nap!

Here is the before picture:

There’s my family – CJ having his coffee, Isabella running around and Samson begging for food. Typical Sunday morning. Also, notice that one of the canvas paintings on the wall, next to the TV,  is upside down. This is where I point my finger at CJ. He does that on purpose to see if 1) I notice and 2) I will fix it. Yes, I’m a little OCD and yes normally that would bug me to no end. But what he didn’t realize is that I actually like it better that way. Ha! In your face buddy!

Anywho, that is how the living room looked around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, right before I laid Munchkin down for her nap. Then I got to work! First we had to re-arrange the furniture. Normally we put the tree in the space where the curio cabinet is but that was before we had a curio cabinet. Now we can’t put it there so we figured it would go in the corner, and hence the bookshelf and couches needed to be moved. So we did that and vacuumed in the process (by the way, we got a new vacuum on Saturday and it totally rocks! This was CJ’s anniversary gift from me. I know that seems akin to a husband giving his wife a blender but believe me, he actually requested it).

Here is the living room after moving the furniture but before decorating:

Then it was time to start bringing up the boxes. Instead of hauling them all up at once, I did it one at a time. Figured that way, if Munchkin woke up during the decorating process, I wouldn’t have this huge pile of stuff taking over the whole room that I had to somehow keep her away from. CJ extracted the Christmas Tree from its storage spot while I did that – no small task either.

CJ left to run some errands and I worked and I worked. I got so into it that I actually forgot that football was on, and more importantly, that the Steelers were playing! In my defense, they weren’t on t.v. so I didn’t actually miss the game. Still, I’m usually johnny-on-the-spot about turning the NFL games on right at noon on Sunday, regardless of who is playing.

God was on my side because Munchkin napped for 3.5 hours!! I was able to get all the decorating done during that time! YES! Here are some of the highlights:

Once Munchkin was up, it was all about spending time with her, which was great. Besides, I needed the break. After she went to bed, CJ and I tackled the tree.

Took us about 2 hours to do it because we had a few bulbs out and we have so  many dang ornaments! But I love going through each one and cherishing the memories. Some I’ve had my whole life (cute story: my parents were closely watching their pennies when my sister and I were babies, and couldn’t afford ornaments. So, my mom took the mobile from one of our cribs and made each dangling animal in to an ornament. We still have them and they are some of my favs), others were gifts from  last year (like the one in memory of CJ’s mom who passed away or the “new mom” one for me). I’ve started labeling them with the year, who it was to and who it was from because it’s easy to forget.

Finally it was done and looked great. I am a stickler for not having any “bare spots” (there’s that OCD again…) and I think we filled it up well this year. True story: way back when CJ and I were dating, we were snuggling and kissing on my couch when all of  a sudden I jumped up, ran to the Christmas tree and re-arranged a few ornaments to cover a bare spot. He didn’t think that was very romantic of me. *shrug*

Here I am hanging the first ornament!

And here’s the finished tree!

I was exhausted by the end of it but in a good way. I love, love, love having the house spruced up for the holidays. Feels so cozy and happy. Munchkin loves it too. She got a big kick out of the talking Santa and the dancing snowmen we have. Seeing her face with all these new discoveries is priceless.

Tonight we tackle the family picture for our Christmas card…last year we had to take like 20 of them because Samson kept hacking or moving or licking or running away. Case in point:

He looks like he’s about to eat the baby! Notice the look on my face that says “I”m going to keep smiling even though I don’t know what the hell you are doing dog!!” Munchkin is even looking at him like “Wha?” Eventually we gave up and cut him out of the pic. Sorry dude. Hopefully both he and Munch will cooperate this year. Lord help me.