Ready for Visitors

Holiday decorating with the kids is an exercise in patience and wonder, creativity and futility.

Perpetually behind, our tree has finally been purchased but won’t be decorated until at least Monday.

Our real tree, a little too tall for our dining room, needs to sit overnight and let its branches relax from being tied up and together in the cold.

In typical preschool fashion, Abbey keeps asking when the branches are going to “fall off,” picking individual needles off the wood floor to prove the tree is ready to be adorned with ornaments she has already begun taking out of boxes.

Amazed by the colors and the sparkle and the pinpoints of colored lights around the house, Abbey and Dylan are fascinated and eager to help, and it’s impossible to keep their fingers off the holiday trimmings for long.

We're one day into decorated mode, and I’ve determined that unless Ryan or I are in the room with them, the stockings can’t be hung by the chimney with care. We’ll need to flip them up and toss them on the mantle, ruining the photographic effect but saving a little noggin from a tumbling stocking holder should Dylan decide he needs to pull his stocking down to investigate the choo-choo further.

Adding festive embellishments to a house already teeming with toys and books and laundry in various stages of completion seems impossible.

As Ryan pulled the rubber totes of Christmas décor from the attic this weekend, he just shook his head at the amount of baubles that would soon be competing for space around our home.

I’d like to think we could welcome visitors at any time during the holidays, which means keeping on top of organizing and cleaning.

Too many years with a sports-enthused husband means the old adage “the best defense is a good offense” comes to mind.

I tend to keep a small sweeper plugged in and leaning into the corner of my dining room, letting me quickly vacuum up crumbs from meals and errant pine needles a few times a day.

Snacks and beverages other than water are supposed to stay in the dining room, but I'll confess I find myself wiping up milk on other floors at least once a day.

We’re working on picking up toys as we finish playing with them, though it seems that they won’t learn that until they’re ready to leave for college, and they can take their legos and stuffed animals and doll furniture with them.

Hopefully visitors can overlook a few, or a dozen, crayons strewn around the construction paper on the floor, remnants of our reindeer hats just made this morning.

Pumpkin bread and pine are weaving together in the air, and I’ll do my best to make sure the floor is free of breakfast debris before you arrive.

I am sharing my holiday home decor and cleaning tips for the chance to win prizes from The SITS Girls and Great Cleaners.