Trimming the Tree

Hi there!  I hope you all had the a fantastic Thanksgiving and nice long weekend.  We had a great time, starting with a McDonald’s stop at 11:45 AM on Thanksgiving day because all Charlotte wanted was french fries.  She was thankful for them at least.

From there we spent many an hour in the car traveling to the restaurant my cousin works at for Thanksgiving dinner.  We have never gone out to eat for Thanksgiving before, but my cousin is an executive chef at this lovely restaurant in Long Island and they put on a Thanksgiving buffet, which is honestly the best thing ever.  Non stop trips to a buffet table for food you didn’t have to cook? SIGN ME UP.  I have to say though, since I’ve never gone out on Thanksgiving I really want to give a shout out to those that have to work in the service industry.  My cousin was up VERY late the night before preparing all the food for the day, and then had to man the carving station the entire time, from noon to 8 PM.  The waiters and waitresses worked their asses off.  There was a customer in the restaurant who was extremely rude, and seeing her treat the wait staff and the workers that way on Thanksgiving just made me realize that these people are sacrificing their own holiday to work and give your family the best experience.  So if your coffee takes a little longer to get to the table than you’d like, maybe cut them some damn slack?  So my hat is off to those that have to work on these days.  After that we went to my sister and brother in law’s house for more dessert, because there’s no such thing as too much food on a day of being thankful for everything we have, am I right?

Fast forward to yesterday when I decided it was time to decorate.  Eric and I thought we would be in our new house for Christmas this year, but because home buying is a process that usually doesn’t work out in your favor, we won’t be moving until after Christmas.  As in like, the days after Christmas.  Talk about stress, but whatever.  We are closing on Friday though, so at least that’s a plus!  Anyway, we couldn’t have all of our usual decorations out, and our tree this year is a very small tree which only holds about 10 ornaments without falling over.  Charlotte was really excited to decorate the tree, and when we were done (in 5 minutes) Eric and I remarked how ridiculous it looked.  But then Charlotte turned around and said “this is the most beautiful tree I have ever seen!”  And that, my friends, is when I gained some damn perspective.  So what if we aren’t in our new home yet with a big fancy tree?  So what if we can only have a few decorations out, with a tiny tree that barely holds our nicer ornaments?  Charlotte LOVES it.  She was feeling the Christmas spirit as we listened to holiday music and she danced.  It’s not about the tree, and I lose sight of that far too easily.  Our little tree IS the most beautiful tree.