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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Behind the Scenes: Decorating for Christmas

The dining room table is part finished, part full of WTF do I do with this stuff stuff. 
I won't front. I don't love decorating for Christmas. I love how it looks when the halls are decked, but the actual act of it I don't enjoy. Ripping the house apart, switching everyday breakables out with seasonal breakables, bringing stuff in from the shed, moving furniture around to accommodate the tree, tripping over dogs while carrying big ass Rubbermaid tubs up and down stairs, battling Gris (MFD is totally Clark Griswold at Christmas) over the front window display...not my cup of tea. The opposite of fun. Everyone's all I love decorating while drinking hot cocoa! and I'm all this sucks!

Sunday after a three hour drive home from Lori's I commenced Christmasing. I love to share the finished product, so I thought why not share some in the throes photos and thoughts?
1 - Shit on every available surface and a lamp from the living room in the dining room? Totally normal.
2 - While moving furniture, dog hair tumbleweeds magically appear out of nowhere.
3 - New R2D2 for out front has arrived, is opened and marveled at and set aside in pieces.
4 - MFD and I battle over the front window like the mother and father in A Christmas Story with the leg lamp. MFD's win for the year - large ornaments that will be suspended. My win - nothing on the base of the window because, you know, dogs. They've destroyed everything that's been put up there.
5 - Supplies, askew.
6 - That is not a prop from Criminal Minds. That is Santa in an XL Ziploc bag, yet to be placed. I should probably leave him in the Ziploc because if the dogs mark him for being a tiny intruder on their turf, it'll be easier to clean...but Ziploc Santa doesn't seem festive.
7 - Ornaments are stored in the spider house...I mean shed. Sunday morning I upended them and dropped them all over the spider floor. I aged 15 years in the three minutes it took to scoop them all up.
8 - I tend to pull outdoor decor that's stored inside out and just leave it where it lands until Clark scoops it up and takes it out. This little snowman box is actually blocking the powder room door from opening in the basement. Ho ho no.

And the cherry on top is that I walked upstairs after having not been up there for a few hours and totally forgot I just jammed the chair from the living room that gets moved for the tree into the bathroom, so I was shimmying that around at 11 p.m. LOLz for days.

Some housekeeping: the Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge link up to share how you did with your November Organize goals is this Thursday, December 4. The Show Us Your Books link up for anything you've read recently is Tuesday, December 9.
Next week, I'll share the finished Christmas decor product. Right now I'm still picking shit up and wondering where to place it. What about you - Christmas decorating fan or you do it because you like the way it looks in the end?
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30 comments:

  1. I am a big fan of how it looks in the end but I wasn't feeling it this weekend. The whole moving everything upstairs while I sprained my ankle doesn't appeal. Next weekend it is. It does make it feel so much more cozy though.

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  2. I haven't started decorating yet because I also dread the decorating aspect of it. Why can't magical Christmas elves show up and decorate for us?

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  3. LOL at the dog hair tumbleweeds... we totally get those too! I'm not a big fan of the project of it all either, but I love throwing on Christmas music and drinking spiked hot cocoa while working at it which makes it better :)

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  4. I started slowly on Saturday. Love inside and outside lights. Will be a bit minimalistic this year since we are hosting Christmas dinner. I am the outside light assistant today.
    #falalalala Love, Your Momma

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  5. i think i have that same tree as in #1!!! i still have to decorate. been too sick. blah.

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  6. So i can go ahead and admit that I dont understand how people could love seasonal decorating. Now I love decorating a home/interior design but ... pulling out 500 boxes and putting up a tree and garland and lights and changing curtains just for a few weeks is stressful! Just yesterday me and the bestie had a convo about it. Its exhausting and not fun. When I read blogs about people omg soooooo excited to put up decorations I think to myself ... maybe Im doing something wrong because that shit is not fun!

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  7. I don't like decorating either. I love how houses look decorated, I love the idea of decorating, but the actual act is not all it's cracked up to be in my book.

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  8. LOVE the end product, HATE the task. Also hate all the dust and pet hair that accumulates on/around/under the decorations.

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  9. I'm with you--I hate decorating for xmas but LOVE how it looks. Since we've moved too many times over the years, our holiday stash has dwindled, so aside from the tree I just have a few bits and bobs that get placed around the house which doesn't really take that long. Outdoor lights don't actually happen here (even though I'd love for them to) because we live on a college campus so after December like...6th, no one is here until January hah

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  10. I love how the place looks all decorated, but I am with you - I hate pulling everything out and doing it. LOL

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  11. Your ornaments are so neatly organized - I need one of those things!

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  12. your ornament organizer is pretty freaking awesome. i'm impressed.

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  13. I think that we're going to tackle the house decorating this weekend. At least, that's my goal!
    And the chair being stuck and you having to shimmy - I giggled - - it's something I would forget and then have to do.

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  14. I like to do it, depending on what it is and where. My own apartment, fine. My mom's house... only if she isn't there. She's so specific, even though the end result is the same. I like things done my way (fast) without pondering if that's a good place for the mini tree even though that's where it ends up every year for the last 10 freaking years.

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  15. Bahahah... tumbleweeds! I'm the same way... I like how it looks but I don't like putting it up/taking it down. I used to love it as a kid... maybe because I didn't have to lug shit around or put up anything hard? (P.S. Our tree comes in 3 pieces and it's not hard at all. I'm just THAT lazy about it.)

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  16. That R2D2 is AWESOME!!!! And hahaha spider house, yeah, I would never go get them lol.

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  17. Ho ho no LOLOLOL. Also laughing at the dog hair tumbleweeds because those tend to appear out of no where. Like, where do they come from?! How do the dogs shed so damn much and still have fur? I love how Christmas decor looks, and I dont mind putting it up. Taking it down? Death of me. I HATE taking all that shit down!!!!!!!

    Don't get me started on spiders barging in on all my fun. Fucking spiders.

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  18. I like decorating. I DON'T like putting the decorations away. There's no reward at the end of it, like there is with putting the decorations up. Fortunately (or a silver lining, I guess) we haven't collected much yet, so other than one string of lights and the tree, we don't have much to set up or put away. Ziploc Santa would probably make sense to anyone else with pets... (Coming from someone whose dog peed on the vacuum cleaner for unknown doggy reasons)

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  19. I do enjoy the actual decorating process, but only after everything's pulled out from the attic. I hate that part, lugging boxes up and down the stairs, etc. We keep it pretty simple, though - we don't actually put away any of our regular decorations, we just add Christmas stuff to the regular stuff. That way we're not constantly swapping out our entire decor scheme, and it takes less time/less effort. About the only stuff I actually swap out is the table decorations, but those are easy.

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  20. I partly enjoy the process. I hate lugging our boxes up from the basement, arguing with husband about which lights to put on and keeping my daughter from throwing everything on the floor. But I do enjoy actually putting the ornaments on the tree and finding stuff that I forgot I bought last year. I can't deal with my husband being picky about the outdoor stuff so I just conceded that to him! He thinks he's brilliant with his light arranging!

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  21. I will officially be moved in with Mark by the end of December.....can't wait to start decorating the place!!!

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  22. Can't wait to see your house all festive! I used to decorate for the holiday, like wreath, some trimmings, tree with ornaments, lights, but ever since the kids were born, my decoration is minimal. I've got enough stuff to have to move around each day (toys, clothes). We get our tree late in the season and that's the only thing that's decorated. No where to store decorations is another reason we don't decorate.

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  23. I agree with you. Well I don't mind decorating but putting 100+ ornaments on a tree is a slow torture to then remove said ornaments a month later. Otherwise I keep it pretty simple so I don't mind it and K deals with the outside lights.

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  24. Decorating the tree is the only thing I like. I believe the Christmas tree is magical. I love taking everything down my house looks so neat lol.

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  25. I don't like unpacking things. While I am unpacking I then dread packing - which I don't like even more. However, I love the look of Christmas and the overall feel after it is all done. Only dilemma - no ladder to hang lights. Gotta get that figured out

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  26. oh goodie, i can't wait for the books link up!
    i am the same with decorating, i kinda hate doing it. i don't mind when it's done but doing it and undoing it - no fun.

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  27. Those dog hair tumbleweeds always seem to appear right after I put the vacuum away. I don't mind decorating, but we keep it pretty simple. We don't have a ton of room in our rental and we can't put anything at dog level so that narrows it down. The worst part by far is walking up and down the stairs to the loft with the Rubbermaid tubs. Those stairs are a death trap. Plus we have a baby gate at the bottom and for whatever reason I always think it's more of a hassle to take down the baby gate than it is to climb over...nightmare. I suggest adding a little Baileys to that hot cocoa!

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  28. That ceramic tree! We had one when I was a kid but it got tossed and I want another one so badly. BUT the prices (sales and shipping) are insane for them now on eBay. I have to remind myself to look in January or at yard salse this June.

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  29. I hate doing the actual work too! You have to clean before and after, which is just too much work. I hope to finally get it done this weekend.

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