Decorating for the Holidays 2020

Merry Christmas! It's time to decorate for the holidays! 

2020 is turning out to be a transition year for us. If it hasn't been obvious from many of these posts of the last few months, we've moved! We're currently in transition while we look for a new place. There's a whole new yard to decorate this year, but many of our things are in storage, so there won't quite be the same spectacle as in years before. But even still, I saved a small box of lights (only 20 sets or so), so we could decorate for the holidays. 

 

My helpers are carrying it from our garage and into the front yard. 

Alli and Ian helped lay out all the different kinds of lights. 

Looking at our new canvas and trying to figure out what lights should go where. 

Alli deemed this tree to be the multicolored snowflake tree and she wanted to help decorate the base. 

Ian is no stranger to climbing ladders from years past. 

Theresa is helping decorate the bushes. 

And I'm going high to get the tops of the trees. 

Twist-ties are a great help to keep light strands in place. Thanks for bringing some to me Alli. 

A few clips of the whole process, plus the kids seeing it lit up at night for the first time. At the end Ian asked me if I had any more lights and if they could buy more with their allowance. Then they started pointing out all the places where the house was missing lights. I think they're spoiled. 

Here's our house last year in 2019. 

Compared to our new place this year in 2020. 

Yeah, I can see what they mean. It does look bare compared to what they've seen every single Christmas growing up. But, some of the up-sides for this year. Decorating only took an hour, plus everyone got to get involved and help out. It would take me 3 days at the old house. 

Now it's time to move to the inside and decorate our tree! Our big fake tree is in storage. This little tree is from when Theresa and I were in college. It is usually part of the front yard decorations, adorning the kids' playhouse, but now it's getting to come back inside as our main decoration. 

It's nice that we still have a fireplace. 

Trying to decipher old paint colors on the tips to figure out where the branches are supposed to go. 

And then figuring out how to attach them to the stand. 

Mommy has the perfect accompaniment to our decorating. Grandma's Spiced Tea! Everyone here enjoys it and thinks it tastes like Christmas. There's also Christmas music playing in the background as we decorate together. 

It doesn't look like too much when you're making it. 

But with a little love and some fluffing of the branches it starts to look more full. 

The kids love doing things together like this. 

Ian wanted to take a family picture of everyone. 

Next it's time to string up the lights and light up the tree! 

Next it's time to hang up the ornaments. There's tiny ornaments for a tiny tree. 

Finding the perfect spot so they're all spread out. 

I told Theresa that I wasn't able to find our tree-topper star. It must be packed away. 

Ian - I can do it!

He ran over to his play desk and within a minute came back with this for us. 

It's a two-sided star with a hole in the bottom for fitting on top of the tree. That's awesome buddy! I love it!

Theresa and I both put the star on top of the tree. It works great! Thanks Ian!

Another couple video clips. 

Later, we all hung our stocking by fire with care. Yeah, once again, our regular Christmas stockings are packed. These are some Dollar Store finds, and I think they actually worked out pretty good. There's some interesting variety plus the kids got their favorite colors. 

Like I said at the beginning, things are in transition, but different can still be good. We're certainly having fun and making memories no matter what!