Holiday Planning

I started decorating a little early. I haven’t made paper snowflakes in at least a decade, but Oliver and I had a crafting session together. He colored some pictures and I cut up some snowflakes for the door and the playroom chandelier. They came out okay. Anything festive is good in my book!

Thanksgiving is only 2 days away and I like to get my decorations out over the long holiday weekend. I love Thanksgiving as its own holiday, but to me it’s also sort of like the [delicious] opening ceremonies to the holiday season. I shamelessly love Christmas and am so excited about cranking up my holiday spirit into high gear. Once the leftovers are packed away in the fridge, it will be time to pull out the holiday decorations. I can’t wait. Now that we have a toddler who likes to explore we’re emphasizing more kid-friendly decorations this year. Less sparkling glass votives and more papiermache. I’m browsing alternative kid-friendly ideas. Certain delicate ornaments will remain boxed up. I’ll have to cut back on anything breakable to what can stay out of reach. I would love to do a small kid’s tree on the side that Oliver can explore, but we just don’t have the room.

Here are a few of our latest ornaments for our collection. I have a thing for animals - our annual tree looks like a menagerie. These are all toddler friendly, to replace some of the more delicate ones that will be temporarily retired. I can’t get enough of the deer that looks like a llama from Crate & Barrel (top middle).

I want Christmas to be a season of magic and wonder for Oliver - he really doesn’t understand much yet, but I know that everything we do now will lay the foundation for next year.

This season we want to take him to our town square park with Santa’s village where all the trees are lit up with twinkle lights. At his age visiting Santa is optional (it might scare him?), but I would love to get him his first hot chocolate. We’ll pick up a fresh tree as a family and decorate it while eating freshly popped popcorn, read the Night Before Christmas a hundred times and listen to lots of Christmas music. I’m putting Hershey kisses in the Advent calendar. He’s a little young for Christmas movies and baking cookies and building gingerbread houses and ice skating, but it’s just more to look forward to.

This year I’m planning on over-celebrating, to focus on the good and happy to make it through. Last year my mom passed away a few days after Christmas, so it’s not going to be easy. This is my favorite time of year, but our family is also still grappling with a huge loss. I know I don’t talk about it here, but I miss my mom every day and it’s been hard. So I will be distracting myself with twinkle lights and glitter and dazzling my son with an overabundance of Christmas magic.