Christmas Tree

We generally put our Christmas tree up the first Sunday in December. I mentioned it to the kids yesterday so of course they were going on about it every 5 minutes, driving me nuts! The OH got out and assembled our old playpen that we always put the tree in (stops kids and cats knocking it down all the time!). I then had to explain to Shmoo why it's called a playpen when generally the only things we've ever put in it are things the kids aren't so much supposed to be playing with (we bought it when Shmoo was a tiny baby but gave up on using it to contain a child virtually straight away). And then I spent ages this afternoon tearing the spare room apart in search of our Christmas decorations, trying and failing to locate the very specific bag that I always pack them into... my nearly-30-weeks-pregnant body is not thanking me for all that lifting! Of course, they turned up in a fairly open location but all tangled up at the bottom of a black garbage bag. It was only then that I started getting vague memories of The OH 'helping' me after Christmas last year, packing up the tree while I was out one day. So then I had to untangle all the tinsel and decorations (requiring the help of a pair of scissors, unfortunately) before letting the kids decorate the tree. Luckily we haven't done lights since Shmoo's first Christmas... they would have been a nightmare to untangle! But in the end the kids finally got the tree finished after their bath this evening and they love it. Their excitement was contagious, enough to keep me going 'til the job was done, lifting Beanie up despite my aching back and hips so that he could hang decorations from the higher branches :) Worth it. Worth it all. Their joy was just what I imagined when I was pregnant the first 2 times, little ones due just before Christmas but who never made it.