Oh, Christmas Tree...

Decorating the Christmas tree is one of my best memories of childhood. We would lug out the fake tree from the garage on my dad's bowling night (he did not like decorating the tree), put a Bing Crosby record on the record player, and my mom, my sister, and I would go through the ornaments and place various Christmas items around the house while eating popcorn and drinking soda. My dad would come home and voila! The entire house was full of Christmas cheer.

I have fantasies of emulating this happiness with my kids. It's one of those things that I am so eager for, but it is not happening yet. Last year Alexandra was terrified of the tree and this year proved to have its own set of challenges:

First, I tried to put on Christmas music, but Alexandra only wanted "Kevin's music" (her music teacher from daycare). I won (?), but only after putting on Kevin's music in her room softly and Christmas music on in the living room. There's maybe 25 feet between the two spaces. It was a mash-up of the dinosaur song and Christmas tunes. Not really a good mix...

Then Alexandra threw a solid 30 minute tantrum upon the emergence of the lights. "No lights! I don't want lights! Lights are hot! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" That was fun.

And onto the decoration of the tree: Alexandra managed to redecorate it/pull ornaments off it and put them in ziploc bags, her dump truck, her various purses, or just throw them on the ground in a fit of two-year old attitude about a gizillion times. I kept moving the ornaments up the tree out of her reach, but she's too smart for that. She got a chair and dragged it over to the tree in order to reach ALL the ornaments. This hasn't stopped since Saturday afternoon. It's going to be a long month.

I guess if I had really thought about it, I'd have realized that maybe a tree wasn't such a great idea this year. I already have fantasies of re-selling the tree on Park Slope Parents and ending the insanity, but we'll probably stick it out. But by Christmas, I'm sure all the ornaments will be scattered all over the apartment, the tree will have no needles, and it will be begging to be put on the curb for tree recycling. Maybe next year we'll forgo the tree for a nice wreath....