Changing Perfect
I'm a little anal retentive about our Christmas trees. Yes, plural. TREES. Only Classic Winnie the Pooh ornaments can go on the Pooh tree. Only plush Boyd's Bear ornaments can go on the Boyd's tree. There is a tree that is for "everything else," but even that is controlled to within an inch of my life.
Alexis, for her part, has her very own tree. She is completely in charge of picking out ornaments for it and decorating it. This serves two purposes: 1. She leaves my trees alone because LOOK! SHE HAS HER OWN TREE! IN HER ROOM! WOW! and 2. Someday she is going to look at this amazing ornament collection she has built over the years and she is going to wonder if there were any Princess ornaments left for the other little girls when she was done. (Answer: No. I think she has managed to buy every princess ornament made in the past four years.)
The point is, she has her own tree to do whatever she wants with--she moves the ornaments, picks out ones that don't match, whatever. I don't care. It's hers.
The tree that I am most anal about is the one that resides in our family room. It's the Main Tree . . . the biggest tree . . . the tree that houses all of the gifts. It's decorated in red and white and silver with a carefully orchestrated snowflake theme. Every single ornament is carefully selected based on how well it matches with the other ornaments. Each ornament is strategically placed so that identical ornaments are never too close together. I literally spend hours decorating it each year, completely going nuts with making sure it's PERFECT. P-E-R-F-E-C-T.
This year Alexis asked to help decorate the Perfect Tree.
I started twitching before the sentence was even out of her mouth.
While she had fully decorated her own tree and even helped with the others without incident, I was admittedly a little freaked out. None of the ornaments are particularly valuable, but did I mention that the tree is PERFECT? As in Martha herself would be proud of the level of anal retentive going on? Because it is THAT perfect.
I finally decided to let the eager little monster help. It was, after all, the right thing to do. Even if just thinking about it made me twitch.
Alexis perused the tubs of ornaments and finally decided she wanted to be in charge of the glass ornaments that are shaped like candy canes. I figured it was fine, especially since I have more of them than I really need.
Alexis carefully unwrapped the ornaments and even more carefully placed them on the tree as I worked on all of the other ornaments.
When she was all done, she stepped back from the tree, looked it over very carefully, and declared it, "Perfect."
I have to agree with her . . .
. . . even if twenty plus candy canes are clustered together in one spot.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Reader Comments (15)
Wow. You would twitch at my house. None of our ornaments match. We only have 1 tree. And I decorate based on the height of the tallest child in the house (meaning the bottom 1/3 of the tree is almost bare). Kudos for letting perfect not be.
I love it. I have a photo of myself when I was about 6 with a branch with about 10 ornaments hanging off it. But the smile on my face? Awesome. I hope you post pictures of all your trees, because I'd love to see them!
You crack me up! For the first time, we will have two fully decorated trees - our "perfect" tree (which is so NOT perfect) and the "kidsmas" tree - named by Oldest Boy - in the basement play area that the kids will decorate themselves. We are off to purchase our "perfect" tree right now! Merry Christmas!
Snort. Yes. I let BB and LB help me with the big tree for about... 15 minutes before I decided to go get out BB's tree so they could work in his room. (LB's tree is arriving this weekend from YiaYia.)
I love her version of perfect.
I know that years from now, you'll remember decorating the tree with Alexis; not the relative perfection of the tree.
My kids do the same thing, and they are always drawn to the candy canes. My three year old played with my set for three days solid, then did a cluster decorate.
Oh. My Gosh. I cannot imagine being quite the Christmas tree perfectionist you are. Good thing too since I raised boys who could care less about decorating the tree (at least in puberty). Please do show us photos of your many kinds of trees. I love Alexis' style!
You would haaaaaaaate our tree. It's a step up from a Charlie Brown tree, but only a step. Evie has redecorated it at least 376 times since we put it up last week. But it fits.
Your perfect tree is GORGEOUS. And that picture of Alexis decorating it is three shades of AWESOME.
Perfect and priceless.
I was always the same way,. but years with kids loosened me up a little. This year, though, I decorated the tree in the entry room and let Emily do the "main" tree all by herself (after I took care of lights and tinsel. And you know what? She did an amazingly good job. I didn't change a thing.
There ya go. Isn't it wonderful?
I think we're doing something different this year. I'm going to plow through my Christmas ornaments and decorations and donate as many as I can to a local battered woman's shelter.
It sounds like you and I come from the same school of OCD. No wonder I like you so much.
Aren't you glad you let her help? Even though it caused some twitches and tics on your part, those memories are really what Christmas is about.
That really does make it perfect. :) And how much will she love that memory when she grows up and realizes how crazy you are about that tree?!?
Christmas time is so fun with the little ones! they do the craziestt things!