Tuesday's Tip!!!!

It's that time of year where we sadly take down all of the joys of the Christmas season and pack them in boxes to be reused next year. While living in Tampa, we would merely switch our Christmas wreath for a Gasparilla wreath and the decorating of pirates and beads would commence. I am tempted to break out our pirate gear just for a little winter fun. Nonetheless, our company is gone and so is our tree.

I carefully packed away each ornament and admired them for the last time until next Christmas. Which are your favorite ornaments? Mine are the ones our children have made through the years, especially those with their sweet pictures on them. I treasure them!

When I pack away our ornaments, I pack them in the box labeled with the child's name on it. EACH child has his or her own box of ornaments. When we decorate the tree, they can put up their very own ornaments that they have made or been given through the years. One daughter's godparents give her a sterling ornament each year, so I write her name on the small ornament box along with the year and who gave it to her. This helps us remember her godparents each year and we are able to remember and pray for them:). Then the ornaments all go back in the large rubbermaid box at the end of the Christmas season. I have DH and my ornaments in their own box too. It keeps all of us happy and organized. Happy Tuesday's Tip!!!

Tuesday's Tip

As you are putting away ornaments, take time to really organize them. I have a large plastic box for each child's ornaments. It is labeled with their name and birth year. As they make new ornaments or are given new ornaments as gifts, I add them to their box. I have the memory of an elephant. I remember things that aren't even important. Until the year my father-in-law died, I could tell you the story behind every ornament all SEVEN of us own. I remembered that my friend, Margaret, gave each triplet a precious VW Bug ornament in their favorite color when they were babies. I remembered the crosses ML gave each child. We decorated with Christmas cards on our tree last year, so we didn't visit with our ornaments. I was shocked to see so many ornaments that I could not remember the giver or the story. Imagine my relief when I saw ornament boxes with "To Hurricane on her 2nd birthday from her godparents" and other sentiments such as that. Some of the ornaments had the to and from and the year on them. All of this explaining is to encourage you to buy a new Sharpie marker and label away. Label the individual ornaments or their boxes so that you and your family will remember their origin for years to come. Happy 2010!

Brilliance from a friend!

We just found out a week ago that we are MOVING. Not to another house in our fair city, but several states away. With 5 children. Sometime near Christmas. Enough said. To say that I am a bit overwhelmed, is like saying fried dough is good, instead of saying it is the best thing you've ever put in your mouth!  I am a bit overwhelmed with the idea of preparing our house, putting it on the market, et cetera while keeping 10 hands from undoing everything I do along the way.

I am a planner by nature. If I could plan my whole life, I would!  I believe this is why the Lord let D take so long to commit in college, and why He had all of our pregnancies be surprises.  The triplets were a surprise & a miracle, and then we had 2 more surprises. So, this latest promotion has almost happened many times over the last year.  It finally happened.  Now it's time to prepare our house to put it on the market, look at houses in our new state, and plan our move. The only problem is that we don't know the date for any of these things, and that is tough for me.  I can only figure out that we will move sometime around Christmas, perhaps as early as Thanksgiving, but probably we'll have movers arrive on the 27th of December... if I have anything to do with the timing, and I don't. 

All of this is to explain that we are going to have to decorate differently this year. At first I thought we wouldn't have a tree, but that would break the children's hearts. Then, I decided we'd have a tree with lights only. When talking to my friend, A, she had the most brilliant idea! She told me to buy some pretty ribbon, and as Christmas cards arrive, we'll decorate our tree! We can't pull out ornaments with an impending move, so this is perfect! I found chocolate brown ribbon with big pink polka dots at Costco today, and I am all ready to decorate our tree!

Thankfully I have been shopping year-round (we've had a Wii in our closet since July), so I  am just about finished with Christmas shopping! Thank you, A, for the AWESOME idea!! If they had had the 4 foot fake tree in stock, I would have already bought the tree too! I think we'll go fake this year with a move in our future! One less thing that needs water!!!