It's the most wonderful time of the year!

My favorite time of year! We're going to start decorating the house today. I finally caved the other day, and bought an artificial tree. That was a really tough decision (and yes, when I called Jon from Walmart to tell him about a tree I found, I was crying), but we just can't keep a live tree alive in AZ. Even waiting until ten days before Christmas, turning off the heat vent near the tree, watering, preservatives, all that, the damn things die. So I sucked it up. Jon is quite happy, but God love him, he isn't gloating. :-) Anyway..... Here's our little piece of holiday magic from this morning.

Jon has the tree out of the box, and is starting to put it up. Natalie's looking for all the blue lights (we like multi lights on our tree), Oliver's in awe, pointing and saying "Tree! Tree!". And I'm hovering, bitching and still a little bitter about our fake tree. :-)

Me - "That looks really scrawny. The display didn't look like that in the store. It was more full. Are you sure it's going to look OK?"

Jon - "Yes, it's going to be fine. It isn't even halfway up"

Me - "I don't know. It's kind of scrawny"

Jon - *less patiently* "It's going to be FINE"

Me - "I don't know. It looks kind of Charlie Brown to me"

Natalie - "It's not BROWN. It's GREEN"

Me - "WHATEVER"
" Did you put her up to that?"

Natalie - *indignantly* "NO he DIDN'T. I put MYSELF up to that!".

For the record, it's looking better, and he's still not finished. Mitz says I'll adjust and be glad we did it, but I don't know. I am glad we can have a tree up for longer than usual, but this is just really hard for me. Silly, but it is.

Speaking of Natalie-isms... This made me laugh the other day. I bought a new carton of ice cream, and we were having it for dessert. I went to take some recycling out, and as I came back in, I heard some drama. I asked what was going on.

Natalie - "Daddy won't let me lick the lid!" I let her lick the lid if the ice cream is for family consumption only - wouldn't do it if we were serving to guests - but for us? Eh. She's only a kid once, let her lick the lid - it makes her so happy. Jon isn't thrilled with that.

Me - "Oh for God's sake. Let her lick the lid! She's only a kid once!"

Natalie - so earnestly - "Yeah, Daddy. I'm still learning!".