Friday, November 29, 2013

Tradition Endures

In my home, Christmas decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving.

I'm a firm believer that opposable thumbs and a mindless adherance to tradition separate us from the animal world. I can no longer remember where I picked that up.

I just searched Google. That was absolutely no help as the top hit demonstrates. This is what I got.

I would swear it was Reverend Jim from Taxi, but I don't know for sure at this point.


Mister let Lamb have most of the ornaments to put up. She was happy to oblige. It's been years since I had to resort to having them alternately choose ornaments to put in their own box lid prior to approaching the tree so they didn't race putting up ornaments from a common box in order to get more of a share.

Mind you, I let them put them where they want--I'm not a control freak, after all--but that was a little ridiculous.

So the tree is up. With decorations and some candy canes (Lamb said she wanted to save most of those to keep adding to the tree). And window lights, too.

I did, however, draw the line when Lamb suggested using pin-feed paper edges as a sort of tinsel. I still have some of that.

Forgive the relative lack of actual tree in the picture. It was hard enough work to get Mister to stand close enough to Lamb for long enough to get them both in the frame and adjust for the height difference!

I forgot that one string of blue icicle lights was half dead from last year. But after I put it up, and the half deadness reminded me of that fact, the other half lit up. I guess it isn't dead.

Lamb made my day when putting out various decorations around our home. She had one in particular, and asked where it went. I said it usually goes on the bookcase in the stairwell. But you can put it where you like, I told her.

"No," she replied, "It's tradition." So it went in the stairwell.

Tradition! Yes, indeed. You don't eff with tradition, as is well known.

Yeah, she'll do just fine growing up.