Christmas Tag

Kimberly wanted to know if I have my Jingle on yet. Well, let me tell you.

Today I scheduled the people to put up our outdoor Christmas lights. (We pay someone to do this for us 1.) because Joel travels right up until December and by the time he's home its not worth the trouble; and 2.) because the first year we lived here he did it himself and I came home to find the truck backed up to the house with a ladder in the bed and Joel perched precariously on the roof of the second story. HannahKate was sitting in the driveway with the phone and said, "Daddy says if he falls, I'm supposed to get out of the way and then call 911".)

On the inside, we have 4 trees: a big family tree (7 ft.), a frilly froo-froo tree (6 ft.), HannahKate's tree (4 ft.) and Hallie's tree (3 ft.). We usually put these up the day after Thanksgiving. I used to say there were only two days out of the year when BigJoel and I "fight". One was the day we'd leave for youth camp (He was a student minister, so there were always a bajillion details to deal with) and the other was the day we put lights on our big Christmas tree. Well, he's no longer a youth minister and he bought me a pre-lit tree. Now life is golden...

And then there's the Nativity sets. I collect them. Some stay on display year-round, but at Christmas, I have around 50 that I pull out. Some are inexpensive, some are quite costly. Some are hand-crafted by talented artists, some are made on a production line China. I have them from all over the globe--places I've traveled and places I hope to visit. That is my favorite part of decorating.

I must admit that I'm more excited about getting ready for Christmas now than I was when I started writing this post a few moments ago. I guess that's probably the point. Now that my "jingle is jangling", I'm supposed to tag three more friends to tell about their plans for the holidays. So I'm throwing a big 'ol yellow snowball at:

Tracey

Johanna

Elizabeth and/or Ms. Cheryl