The Ghost of Christmas Past - I apparently forgot to post this back when I wrote it

It is the holiday season and I am trying to get into the "spirit."  I had Cody drag all the Christmas boxes out of the storage unit for me and load/unload them into the car.  They are now sitting in a huge wall/pile in my sitting area.  I had planned to decorate this weekend only work got in the way.  Being on call = not fun.  Being on call = not being able to finish projects you had planned.  Therefore, my laundry monster is still as tall as me and growling to be put away.  I was able to do laundry but I didn't feel like taking the time to fold after it came out because I was sleep deprived and being lazy.  I plan on taking a few days off this week while the boys are at school to kick the house's ass.  I am going to clean it like there is no tomorrow.  It is time to mop and glo again.  I love how shiny the floors will be.  It will reflect the lights of the artificial tree that I am using this year and I won't have to worry about picking up any pine needles.  Gotta love the fake stuff (funny for a girl who spent so much time on a Christmas tree farm while growing up).

My theme this year for Christmas is "I finally have a mantle!!!"  I am really going to bank on that since I haven't had a mantle since....hmmmmm...forever.  Wait, I guess we did technically have one but it was more of a ledge behind the wood stove in the trailer that we live in for 18 months while building our house.  That was a Christmas to remember.  It is also the Christmas we compare all of the Christmas' against.  That was the year that our family of four was living oh-so-not-comfortably in a 10' x 50' 1963 trailer.  The house was so small we didn't even have room for a tree.  Not even a little one.  So we had a wreath.  We all decorated little plastic ornaments from the dollar store and hung them on the wreath alongside the ornaments the boys made at school that year.  We put lights on the wreath and all of the presents were piled on a side table under the wreath.  All the house-hold items we received that year were put into storage until we moved into the new house as we had no room for them in the tin can we called home.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting it down, it was a house to live in cheaply it just wasn't ideal.  If we had known it was going to take that long, it would never have transpired the way it did.  The oven was so small we had a turkey breast.  Turkey wouldn't even fit in the oven.

Cody's bedroom was the little 7'x11' pop-out add-on/entry way into the house.  It had no insulation.  So during the day he would play in there and then sleep on the couch inside at night.  We had two dressers stacked on top of each other to hold our clothes.  The cars we owned were more expensive than the house and you know what it was ok.  Looking back it makes me thankful for what we have now.  It also makes me happy that I have room to put up so many decorations that it is going to look like Christmas barfed all over the house.  I can't wait!!!!