Tour of Homes

Wow, what a busy week. Like most folks, I'm always very excited to decorate my house for Christmas. Now that the girls are older and appreciate/remember more, I find it more enjoyable. They are really getting into the spirit. Each morning the girls run to the advent calendar to see what goodies are left behind the door. Just yesterday we wrote Santa our wish list (complete with photos from our trip to the toy store...we don't get toy catalogs here).
I have to admit, however, I'll a slacker when it comes to actually getting the job done. I tend to wait till two weeks before Christmas to pull everything out. I believe it is because we use a live tree and I'm afraid of the fire risk. I never could understand why so many folks purchase trees the day after Thanksgiving. The tree dries out in a few days, and your left with a huge beautiful fire hazard. Plus I'm still full and tired from the day before! I'm always, always late shipping Christmas presents. I have no problems buying them. It's the wrapping and shipping I don't do well. Kinda like laundry. I'm wonderful at loading and transferring laundry, but good luck finding nicely folded clothes in your drawer. In fact the laundry situation was so bad recently, Carolyn and Meghan told me I need to buy more socks cause there weren't any in their drawers. Guess where they were? Yep, in one of three laundry baskets full of clean, folded laundry.

Well this holiday season a new woman has appeared!!! Can you believe it is December 7 and our house is completely decorated with tree and all. And, yes, all of my holiday presents are shipped!! I'd like to say I've turned a new leaf and have become some amazing Martha Stewart re-incarnation. But no, there were outside forces at work. First, the gifts. In order to guarantee presents would arrive by Christmas, I had to mail them by November 23. Yes, an entire month early. There was no room for procrastination. I believe this is why the laundry situation got as bad as it did. I was tackling enough folding with the wrapping :)

Now for our house. I'm not sure where to begin with story, so I'll start back in Iowa. Karl and I had hoped to be away over the holiday's during our time here; maybe visiting my sister and Garrick in Aussie, maybe skiing in northern Japan or sunning in Phuket. Regardless of where, we just weren't going to be here. (And guess where we were spending our holiday's this year?) Thus, we chose to limit our Christmas decorations. We did it before when we were first married. Lights, bows and simple red balls on a tree, a few poinsettias and your all set. We literally packed three Christmas decorations: our advent calendar, a table cloth and one 12 pack of ornaments. This was my plan, simple easy christmas decore.

Live christmas trees are basically impossible to come by here in Oki. I wasn't sure I was up for buying a fake Christmas tree. I thought I'd use a palm tree as a substitute. Then I got really creative and was going for the plastic, glittery pink, yellow and blue palm trees scattered across all the car dealerships. I'm serious here. I was really set there for a while just to have fun with it all and go for really tacky. Then I thought of my poor sister and Garrick. They'd be looking back at pictures of Lachlan's first Christmas were he's ripping into the presents sitting beneath a fuchsia palm tree. I just couldn't do it to them. So I resigned myself to purchasing a fake Christmas tree. I was still in my I'll wait till the last minute mode, but then opened my big mouth. Long story short, our house was added to the officer club's holiday tour of homes. Talk about a lot of pressure. How do you decorate your house to look like a show home for 30 plus women to come and see, when all you have is 3 things and don't want to break the bank doing it? There went the simple decorating.

One crazy week after Thanksgiving later, full of lots of bargain hunting, candles, flowers and paint, our apartment was ready for Friday's tour. I must say the apartment looks very nice. We also out did ourselves this time on the 9th floor. In addition, to showcasing our beautifully decorated homes, we hosted a buffet dinner in the hall similar to Thanksgiving. We each decorated a table with different themes. I had the whimsical holiday theme (thanks to Marta's adorable snowmen/santa placemats). After dinner, we took a bus to another house for desserts, ending the evening at the O Club for cocktails and karaoke. What a night!

So there is my story for why I'm so put together this year. While it was all for a fun cause, there were some times there I was quite stressed. Like when I was frantically trying to tie ribbon onto every single ornament as excited girls stood on chairs and ladders decorating the tree cause there isn't a single ornament hook to be found on this bloody island!! Thank goodness I accidentally bought plastic ornaments. Or our dorm living situation that adds up to six women PMSing at the same time. (Surprizing, there were no brawls over chaffing dish placement!) All in all, I'm really happy to have all the holiday stress behind me. Usually December 7 finds me staring at Christmas like a speeding train headed my way. It will be the first time in a long time that I'm able to a have relaxing holiday season. I wish you all a relaxing, enjoyable holiday season as well.