Dear Matthew, Toby and Josie
I've learnt over the years that it makes so much more sense to put up the Christmas trees in mid to late November, so that when the chaos of December hits, all you have to do is sit and enjoy your sparkly tree rather than add it to the list of all the things you need to accomplish in December.
Ma Ma seems to have this trick sorter. Given she has about a dozen full size trees, over a hundred Santa ornaments and a bazillion other Christmas decorations, she needs to start early. If she hasn't started by October she's going to be in a world of trouble to get things done by Christmas day. So one day in November we headed over to 'help' her put up her outside trees. I use the term help loosely given I was rocking up with a toddler and preschooler but you get my drift. I also think I may have made us go backwards because as soon as Ma Ma put up the first tree I remarked how nice the actual tree was, and she reminded me that in fact this was my tree, that Id' bought when I was 21, but had traded it with her for a smaller tree when we moved into our old house many years earlier. I had completely forgotten and now that we're in our new house asked to swap them back. So we ended up putting down the tree haha! Anyway we found another one to put up (wasn't hard, they breed at your grandparents' house) and decorated that one. You both loved all the sparkly baubles and afterwards you had a dip in the pool with Gumps.
Back at our place, I set up our new/old tree and popped the lights on, and then after school one day all you kids decorated it/tried to kill each other until I called it quits. It was lovely to watch you all decorate our huge tree in our front window (I have literally dreamed of this location for a tree for years and years and feel beyond blessed to be in our huge house with this perfect spot for a tree) but I think next year I'll call in reinforcements because managing breakable decorations while you boys rough housed on the floor and having a toddler open every box before I could check what was in them was priming your mum for a heart attack haha!
Your dad also put up most of the outside Christmas lights, something I am also ridiculously excited about now that we have a massive house to decorate!! Every year we add to them and this year he's bought some light-up kangaroos :) We also made some reindeer cookies as per tradition (see photos below!).
Love you all,
Mum xxx
.HEIC)
