One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly." -- Andy Rooney
I know another quote. I can't resist. But I love that. It takes so long to get ready. Clean up from Thanksgiving. Put away all the pumpkins, turkeys and anything orange. Then clean the house again and set up all the Christmas decorations. Takes me a good week to get the inside done. With this being our third Christmas in this house I think I remember this year where things go. There's something oddly comforting for me to have the same hole in the molding from last year to tack up my garland.

I guess like many people I dream of that perfectly decorated home at Christmas. You know the one with the perfect snow outside that no one had run across. The beautiful greenery around the massive double front doors with each light placed perfectly around them. Inside a 20 foot tree with each branch decorated perfectly with beads, glass ornaments, and lights. Presents underneath with matching ribbons and bows. No SpongeBob wrapping paper here.

Though I may strive for that or at least some of that every year, I probably will never totally achieve it. But I am not sure that deep down I really want to.

I hang many of the school creations from years past. I still have cotton ball Santas that the Diva made in nursery school and she is in 10th grade. There's a Santa made from a paintbrush happily looking at me from my tree as I type this. Tonight Shorty demonstrated his new skill of cutting snowflakes from paper that he learned in art class today. He then proceeded to make a snowstorm that we covered the family room windows with. And I love them. They are not from Fortunoff. They are not expensive or crystal encrusted. But they are one of a kind. And they were made with love. They probably won't appear on the cover of some snooty catalogue. But, they will appear again next year when I open the Christmas storage tub containing kids' creations.

So this year as they open their gifts on Christmas morning I won't run for the big black garbage bag right away. I will just sit in their glorious mess and admire the snowstorm taped to my windows.