Decorating Distraction

When you stay up extra late on Thanksgiving, wake up early to shop, drink fewer coffee gallons than average, and have a propensity toward ADD, the following nonsense might result when you are trying to put up a Christmas tree and accidentally stumble upon a box of dress-up costumes.  You may also feel compelled to write run-on sentences to describe the scene.  

Eli absolutely loves masks.  I have a feeling he may grow up to be superhero or a bank robber or a porta-potty cleaner - they wear masks, right?  They better.

Marina in her Tinkerbell outfit with Grandma in her 1990's t-shirt, still cheering on my high school soccer efforts.  While Marina's wings kept getting stuck on everything, she refused to take them off.  She knows the merits of form over function even at an early age.

 Eli and Tia looking seriously awesome.  Ariana is wearing a dress made for a 6-year-old, Eli is thinking of making a grab for her magic Tinkerbell wand.

 Marina altering the Nativity scene... Yikes!

 Marina added an extra tutu to the fairy outfit because more is more.

Mark beaming someone with his laser eyes.

 Me, posing dramatically with fake Christmas tree branches, while Eli holds up a latex bald head that looks amazingly similar to Granny Panties.  

Me:  Tired is the new black.  Eli: trying to melt the camera though his mask.

 Bride #2.  This one grooming and looking for nits in the tree.  

 Someone kept camouflaging himself next to the Christmas tree.  

And this!  The prize of all the Christmas tree.  This is a homemade ornament that has blessed our tree for more the 25 years.  I have to hand it to my mother, if this ornament was given to me by this homeless-looking child, I would have thrown it away with the rest of the rotten turkey from Thanksgiving.  

Here I am, in Sunday school, looking fabulous.  Notice that at five, my hair was already becoming a problem, lifting several inches off the top of my head and matching up with the width of my shoulders. I have on very attractive stirrup pants and I am balanced precariously atop this plastic chair for no apparent reason (this was before safety concerns and lawsuits).  Apparently I wanted to convey my dramatic displeasure in this photo by refusing to smile.  This picture deserves to be glued to a wooden block, surrounded by green lace ribbon and immortalized on a fake Christmas tree for over a quarter century.  

Believe it or not, my family was finally successful, after a two-day Christmas decorating challenge.  We had to take a 24 hour break between the tree construction and ornament addition.  Once again, we are models for high productivity.

In reality, we are actually just trying to train ourselves up for a game show like Double Dare (does this still exist?), so we constantly encumber ourselves with masks and garments and then try to accomplish mundane tasks.  You should see what I wear when I try to prepare a meal for my family (which happens only once a month)... this could be why I am so unsuccessful all the time.