It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....!

Usually, come Dec 1st, we pull out all the Christmas bins and put up the tree, lights, and everything else Christmas.

This year however, its been a bit more of a challenge.  You see, my wonderful hubby packed all of our Christmas items in the VERY BACK of the trailer we used for moving.  The trailer is still over half full of things that have not found homes yet.  That means my Christmas stuff was buried :(  BUT yesterday we had a bit of a reprieve from the wind, so my oldest and I were determined to find at least the tree.

Hubby took the middle 4 kiddos to church (matthew had been sick with the flu the night before, so I stayed home with him and the baby), and I wanted to surprise them when they got home with a Christmas tree.  As soon as they were out the door, we ran around tidying up the house, and trying to figure out were to put the tree.  If you hadn't noticed, we don't have a lot of extra room right now.  Ok, really we dont have any room for anything more, but that didn't deter us.  We WERE going to find a place for that tree!  After some thought, this was the brilliant idea.  We would put the tree where the treadmill was sitting.  Ok, then were does the treadmill go?  Its not like i can just stash it in a closet for a while.  It doesn't fit through any doors without tearing the whole thing apart, which I wasn't about to do (again!)  Well, then we would just have to get rid of the end table and put the treadmill in the corner between the couches.

All good there, but now, were to put the end table? (this is my life right now)  Like our solution?

We just stacked it on top of the other one, and are going to use it as an extra space for Christmas items.

Nice!  Now we just needed to un-bury the tree and such.   (Matthew informed me that the little tree in the picture would NOT be acceptable as our main tree ha!) So, I put Little Will down for a much needed nap, and Matthew and I headed out to the trailer.  

It only took us 30 min to un-bury the tree and two Christmas tubs.  That was good enough.  I wish i had told Matthew to take a picture of me climbing around in the trailer. I had one foot on this stack of boxes and the other on whatever appeared semi stable, and was reaching across and down to get these big tubs out.... on second thought, its probably better that no camera was involved. ;)

Whatever. I got them out!  So we quickly set up the tree, and put on the lights. Just as we were finishing, the rest of the family got home.   You should have seen their faces!  It was like Christmas morning!  They were so excited!  Instantly they had to find the ornaments, and put some on the tree. Next came the lights for the windows and walls.  Definitely worth every one of those minutes that I spent in the trailer to see and hear their excitement.

Yes, even the dog had to be decorated.

We spent the rest of the day getting lights on the outside of the house, and pulling out all the other Christmas stuff. I am still missing a few boxes though, most importantly their Nativity, so I will soon be back looking for the rest, but as i sit here tonight, with the tree lit up and the first gifts under the tree, I am reminded why Christmas is so important to our family.

Its not all about the gifts or the lights or the tree. It is about celebrating the birth of Christ. That tiny baby born so many years ago.  He came to save us, and it is for that reason we get excited for Christmas.  It is for that reason that we light up the tree and the house.  We want to celebrate the most wonderful birthday of all, Christ's birthday. Happy birthday baby Jesus, may we never forget the true meaning of CHRISTmas.

What are some of your favorite Christmas decorating stories?  I would love to hear!