Better weekend

This weekend has been much better. My grandma is back home and the family is trying to find someone to stay with her full time since she can't be alone any more. Our family tradition is to decorate the house the day after Thanksgiving, but since we were in Cali last weekend, we had to bump it back to this weekend. We decorated inside last night and outside this morning. I have to say that decorating outside with Jason can be a little trying--he doesn't have much patience for it. So by the time we were done, I was a little grouchy. This afternoon, we went and picked out our tree, the first time our little family has ever had a real tree. There is nothing quite like decorating the tree to really put me in the mood for Christmas. There are times when I wish that I had a really nicely decorated tree with matching ornaments and ribbons, things like that. But nothing can compare to pulling out the ornaments with the kids. We buy the kids an ornament every year in addition to the ones they make at school and get from their grandparents, so pulling out the ornaments is like remembering all the past Christmases. We have so much fun decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music and just being happy together. I think the day we decorate the tree is always one of my favorite days of the holiday season. It's not about gifts or commercialism (really it's not even about Santa, though we usually end up talking about him a little), it's just a happy time together with my family. This is what the season is all about.