Ornamental Moments

Two things of note took place today. First, the whole family got dressed in semi-coordinating blues and grays this morning — no small feat alone for three teens — and sat for family pictures for the first time in 2/3 of a decade. Believe it or not, without an excess of arm-twisting all four kids behaved themselves and even smiled on demand (and I didn’t screw anything up, either). It may have been the best early Christmas present the Puddinette could have asked for.

For the record, today’s socks were chosen to match the family picture sitting. Blue and red stripes with brown heels and toes were right on the money.

As if getting family pictures successfully taken wasn’t enough, we also finished putting up the holiday decorations. There wasn’t much left to do after yesterday besides putting up and gussying up the tree, but that task took twice the effort of years before simce we added a 9′ pencil tree to our family room. That’s what you’re seeing behind my socks above, and to be honest, I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

In case anyone is interested, our “primary” tree — that is, the one that will eventually get all the presents — looks like this. Our Yule tree situation is an embarrassment of riches, really.

It’s also hard to believe that my sock-y crusade has little more than a month and few days left. But that’s a different post altogether.