Decorating for Christmas?

It's the week after Thanksgiving and I still haven't put up our lights and tree! Ack! It's really hard to get motivated when I only have one child left in the house and she's 16. Of course, she's been after me to get the lights up since the neighbors have all got theirs up. I suppose I will, but it will have to wait until the weekend now. I could use a little supervision. I've been pretty klutzy lately (two knife wounds and a burn from Thanksgiving cooking). Yeah, I could just see the damage I could do on a ladder!

So what do I plan to do to decorate? We have a quaint cottage (translation: crackerbox house) and the roof line isn't very steep so no problems there. I'm going with white lights and some stings of red and white mixed for the posts on the porch.

For the tree, I'm a sucker for a fresh cut fir. Sorry to the tree-huggers out there, but I love the smell and it's someone else's income, and they'll plant more so it can't be all bad. As for lights...the more color the better! Then I layer on the classic bulbs and a string of red wooden cranberries. I add the decorations the kids made when they were younger (talk about making me lonely for those days!) and voila (or wah-lah for those of us in Arkansas who can't spell French words).

I have very few table tops (remember the crackerbox issue) so my daughter has our Christmas village set up on her dresser already (that didn't require any effort on my part, it was all her doing). She added a string of colored lights to her bookshelves and set up a TV tray table for the Nativity scene and she's good to go in her room.

I might be humbug about decorating, but I LOVE Christmas music and take every opportunity to sing it with my daughter. If she's not a grumpy 16 yr old in the morning, we sing on the way to school. It's the only time of the year you can sing Christmas music and people won't look at you funny. My favorite song is probably White Christmas. And I love to watch the old movies with Bing Crosby like White Christmas and Holiday Inn at this time of year.

What's your decorating tradition? (I'm liking my Nick of Time decorating-nothing like a naked-chested cowboy with Christmas lights to bring good cheer!) And what's your favorite Christmas song? Do you have a favorite movie you watch at Christmas each year? Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of NICK OF TIME! I'll choose a winner late tonight.

Posted by Elle James
Author of Nick of Time