Title taken from a slight tweaking of a line from the wizard of oz... "it gets darker before it gets lighter..."
Yesterday we decorated our house for Christmas. I absolutely LOVE this time of year, and I especially love getting our house christmasified with my man. I think my primary love language is usually touch, but I'm thinking more and more that quality time must be pretty far up there too. Doing things side by side with my husband makes me so happy. And he has lots of opinions when it comes to decorating for Christmas, it's quite cute :)
But anyway.... sometimes when I see someone's beautifully decorated home I don't consider the process it takes to get there. Things don't just jump up onto the mantle in the right arrangment, there's some trial and error, some pulling out and putting back, running down to the basement to bring things back up that you thought you were putting away... And man, you should have seen our living room yesterday afternoon! Boxes on the floor, on the sofas, strings of partially working christmas lights draped over the chairs, garlands tangled up all over the place, our kitchen table was covered with stacks of... I don't even know what.... but it was covered. And our basement family room!! Train track pieces scattered all over, more boxes, empty ornament boxes and tissue paper floating here and there... If someone would have come into our home at about 2:30 p.m. yesterday they would not have called our house "peaceful" "cozy" or "organized." BUT! by last night, the last of the boxes had been unpacked and re-packed, our tree was lit up and the train was running smoothly around the bottom, the outside of our house was lit up with all working lights, the mantle was transformed, the nativity sitting peacefully on top of our tv cabinet, my little live tree glowing with white lights on the buffet in our kitchen, wreaths and stockings all hung... And man! As the light outside faded and the twinkling lights and candles inside glowed brighter, cozy is exactly the word I would have used to describe our home. Peaceful and warm and cheerful and festive... and slowly but surely, organized once again.
My point is, that sometimes we see a beautiful end product but we are afraid of the mess that it takes to get there. That gorgeous painting hanging on someone's wall? I bet the artist had smudges on their smock, maybe some paint on the floor, a cup of muddy looking water sitting nearby, a palette full of partially mixed and messy colors as they created. It took a little mess to make that pretty. I could have let myself get a little crazy at the chaotic half-doneness all over our house yesterday. But instead I just went with it, climbed over a box or two, and knew that when it was all said and done it would be well worth it. And I enjoyed the process. Sometimes we just need to let our hair down and give ourselves permission to make a worthwhile mess. :) ;) Have fun Christmas decorating everyone!!! :)
(p.s. I had hoped to post some before and after photos of our mess but am having trouble uploading today... maybe later!)
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