Letting it Go

My Works for me Wednesday thought is about letting go of all the things that cause me to stress and not enjoy celebrating the Christmas season. When we lived in Florida I put up 4 full size trees and two small trees. We had full size trees in the family room, sunroom, dining room, and our bedroom. I had a smaller 4 foot tree in each of the kids rooms. We would decorate the trees as a family and I would go behind the kids and tweek them a little because you CAN NOT have two of the same color side by side. Everyone knows that, don't they? I was reminded by Meg at Whatever this morning how much I have learned to let go. It wasn't a conscious letting go, I just let them wear me down to where I was happy to have a tree at all the last two years. We moved Thanksgiving weekend two years ago to Alabama from Florida and then again Thanksgiving weekend last year from our rental home into our new home. After so much packing, the last thing I wanted to do was unpack 16 Rubbermaid boxes of ornaments and decoration and put up 6 trees. So, I let the kids do it. I only tweeked a little (I promise), not really there to just take a lopsidedly decorated tree. And, we did need ornaments on the top half. But, in my visually happy world of all the talented blog decorators I would not be invited to speak on how to make a tree that would win many complements. One day I will decorate and it will be beautiful. My grandkids will come and break everything and I will blog about that. But for today I admire my tree with bare spots, crooked branches, naked top, memories of all the things my kids have made, the smiles as they rediscover their ornaments they receive each year, and the fact that I didn't yell once about where the ornament was put- just tweeked a little, remember? When another one went splat against my hardwood floors I just smiled and told him to get the broom. He swept it up and last night my husband discovered it is still in a pile- behind the tree. Didn't mention to actually put it in the trash, so he swept like a good little soldier. If you come over keep your shoes on, don't want you to cut your feet. You could take one shoe off and leave one on so that my tree won't be lopsided anymore. Now, that is letting go.

Maybe something more interesting will be at Rocks in my Dryer. Does anyone else have rocks in their dryer? I have actually found rocks in my dryer. And pens, and crayons, and cars, and little men, and indians, and legos. Where do the socks go???? Why can we not figure this one out? Maybe if we had rocks in there they would beat up the bad runaway socks and keep them in their place. Anyone else have the, "I told you not to wear your socks outside." syndrome. They haven't figured out that I fill their stockings, I mean Santa fills their stockings with socks, and that they get less candy just because they wear their socks without shoes outside and they look like we are destitutes.