Joe and Clara Jane: The Day Before We Put Up the Christmas Tree

Well, Fans, another Thanksgiving (or as we might as well think of it around here, The Day Before We Put Up the Christmas Tree) has come and gone. Joe and Clara ate cranberry sauce, pickles, olives, and other assorted crudite, while the rest of us also had your more traditional Thanksgiving feast fare. It was all but a prelude to the following day on which we put up the Christmas tree.

We began early with the first orders of business: running the vacuum around the living room and moving the toy cubbies to the porch. Then, Julie and the bambini decamped to the couch to watch as Ted brought the tree into the living room and unfurled it. After the tree was unfurled, of course, it was time to trim it. Until the bambini were told they had two choices (build a fort upstairs or in their room or build a fort upstairs or in their room), the process was a study in well-meant but crazy-making exuberance. Picture Birdie grabbing a small crystal train and waving it about while saying, "Choo choo! Choo choo!" Picture Joe flinging himself onto the couch in excitement only to kick the tree each time he did it. Do you have the picture, Fans?

Grandma Connie tried to control the simmering chaos by asking the bambini to hand her ornaments of various colors but you know it, too, Fans: hanging the ornaments is where it's at, and so this whole surrendering of the ornaments to someone else to hang was only going to last for so long. Birdie merrily strung ornament after ornament on a string of lights which is exactly what Joe did last year when he and Clara helped before Ted executed an extraction to an indoor playground. One can, of course, simply reposition ornaments, but our elves were working their festive magic too quickly to keep others' spirits bright, so the Fort Diversion of 2012 was hatched.

By lunchtime, the bambini had built a fort and Julie and Grandma Connie had the tree fairly well along. After arriving back downstairs, the elves were instantly back in the tree trimming game. Julie decreed that everyone had to take turns, even Grandma Connie. Taking turns saw us through to lunch time, after which Joe was going swimming in Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles' hotel's pool while Clara napped. It turns out that one of the handful of things better than trimming a Christmas tree is swimming in your grandparents' hotel's pool.

As soon as Clara was down for her nap, and Joe had been carted off to swim, Grandma Connie and Julie stepped it up, and finished up. Fans, they even had time to sit and admire their handiwork and chat with glasses of wine. It's not Christmas yet, but it felt like a Christmas miracle.