tra la la la la la bah humbug...

Yep - I'm still in this stupid mood. Not that I wanna be, but I just am. Traditionally we always decorate the house for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Needless to say it was not on my priority list this year. In fact it wasn't even on the bottom of the "to do if I get everything else done" list. Pathetic, I know. So my sixteen year old decides we have to decorate the house. Now. No way, I say. I can't, I won't. I don't feel well. Which only made her dig her heels in more and express just how rotten of a mom I am these days. Probably true - it's been a long month. But that just gets me upset, and now I feel even less like decorating. So I go off to my room to have a good sulk and wallow in my misery.
Life goes on. As always. Moms are not indispensable ya know. She apparently talked her father into taking her to the store to get lights for the exterior of our house. In the six years we've lived here we have never decorated the outside of our house. For a different reason each year. This year she is having none of it, and wants to see lights out there. Period. So they go get lights. When I come down several hours later I find Carissa and her three friends (cuz she's not about to do it all herself, Tom Sawyer that she is...) just finishing up decorating the Christmas tree. My living room was decorated, the tree was up, and all the lights outside were up, the latter courtesy of my hubby, and Brad and Merrick, two of those friends she manipulated into helping her. The Christmas music was playing merrily, and they were laughing and having a really good time.
I don't feel any better, but at least my house looks like my children expect it to for the holidays. And it sure helps cover the fact that I feel like a grinch. None of my neighbors will know, will they? Uh, maybe when they don't get a Christmas card this year? I think I'm boycotting that tradition too.......