We decorated our tree tonight.
My order-loving husband hid his eyes in the kitchen and busied himself with sanitizing the already clean counter tops as to avoid watching the kids put 70 ornaments in the same one foot square again.
Watching them like a science lesson in muscle memory.
Like they physically cannot choose any different branch.
CHLOE: “Aww. Poor Daddy. He hasn’t gotten to put on any ornaments with us!”
JUSTIN: *calling out panic-sounding from the kitchen*
“No! No! It’s OK! I’m participating just by being here with you all!”
(Unspoken: PLEASE BELIEVE ME.
Unspoken: PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ME COME)
Christmas tree decorating with children is clearly not OCD compatible.
The house was loud, and crowded, and also kind of hot.
The cat was in the lights.
The girls were bossing each other about where they should put things.
Even though this time of year tries to pressure us all into Pinterest style perfection,
this kind of life and sometimes hectic bustle is what I have always wanted for myself.
I wanted to say things like,
“No. Do your REAL smile.”
I wanted kids with a quirk or two.
I wanted out of the ordinary,
and I got all these things,
plus a few.
When I was younger and people asked me how I imagined my future, I always answered that I dreamed of a house full of family at the holidays.
Everyone talking at once.
Sharing our funny “remember when”s.
Growing up my mom and I always decorated our tree alone in a house that felt sometimes too quiet and a little empty.
I wanted booming laughter.
I wanted an always open door.
I’m was so thankful tonight to realize that I now have it all.
My oldest daughter, Alena, and her new husband, Aaron, had come to help with the ornaments, too.
She even pilfered some to take home with her to put on their very first Christmas tree.
I watched her leave clutching such random ones and I smiled.
That wonky stuffed camel?
That frame of dead childhood cats?
We all treasure different things…
We sat around a too-small table arm-to-arm, and ate homemade chicken soup with cheddar bay rolls.
Justin and Aaron did rock, paper, scissors for the last one, and not even once did anyone ask
“Mama, How many more bites?”
I took a photo of all my babies home together in the nest.
The nest that keeps changing shape.
That perfect feeling moment in time that I captured meant even more after the kind of week that we’ve had.
I’ve missed Alena extra this week.
She got married and left me home with two girls that are pre-teens, and who lately seem like they’d just as soon eat my head as look at it.
Two pre-teens that are perpetually mortified, embarrassed, and completely grossed out by me.
Two pre-teens that make me park behind a bush when I drop them off for school.
Two pre-teens that have tested me this week in ways that I have honestly never experienced.
On Sunday there was such a scene over an innocent picture I took of them out playing in the rain that I found myself blurting something about boarding school pamphlets,
before I went to lay in my bed with my Emotional Support Heating Pad.
Pre-teens, I’ve said before, they can BREAK YOU, friends.
Frankly, I’m not entirely convinced they don’t work for the government.
But
then there was THIS moment, right in the midst of it all.
The smiling faces that make US standing around our tree.
A crystal ornament placed on the same branch as some old paper ones.
This perfect warm-house, all-together,
how-we-have-always-done-it moment
set it all right again.
As I stood back and watched the kids placing those familiar ornaments that really mean something only to us
I saw the perfect picture of the life I’ve been given.
How I’ve decorated my Family Tree.
Sometimes perfect, sometimes not.
Our soft, delicate memories often sharing a small space with some hard, and awkward ones.
We can dream of our lives turning out with everything perfectly placed,
but the reality is that most of us have a family tree that looks like we let the kids decorate it.
In real life our trees branches bear the weight of hundreds of memories and life experiences unique only to us.
We all have glittery memories along with a few tattered paper ones.
No Family Tree is ever Pinterest perfect.
Our decorations aren’t usually even.
Our theme sometimes isn’t cohesive at all.
Maybe there’s a dead patch.
Maybe yours looks kind of sparse.
Maybe the whole tree is crooked and is just fighting to stand.
Thank goodness the beauty of our tree isn’t in the actual tree, itself,
but is instead in what we make of the decorating.
The beauty in this unique, sometimes lopsided, over-concentrated-in-one-area life
is that even though it might look kind of funny sometimes,
it tells a story that belongs
only to us.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
