The Best Night of the Year

...has never been Christmas Eve, not even when I was a Christian. A couple years ago, it was February 22, when Lithus and I got married at midnight. Back in 2009, it was October 3 and my 40th birthday. But the general best night of the year, the one that comes every year, is the night we decorate the tree.

One year, when I was in school in Boston, my mother asked if they could go ahead and get the tree and decorate it before I got home. I assured her it was okay to get the tree, but could they please wait to decorate it until I got home. She agreed and they did. I got home one night. The next day, I went out for some now-forgotten reason and came home to...the tree decorated. In one of my mother's greatest ~ okay, maybe not greatest, but definitely top 100 ~ moments of mothering, she undecorated that thing, so we could redecorate that night. And I let her. That's how much I love decorating the tree.

Guess what Lithus and I did last night? We put on carols. We poured egg nog. We had to get incredibly creative, because the tree this year is tiny. I danced and sang and was my Christmas Elf-y self. And now we are decorated. My plan is to cajole the hotel next door into letting me go up to their pool and take a picture of our window from there.

Until then, here's what it looks like around our place. My god but it's good to be home for the holidays.

Those are adorned, bedecked, bedazzled, festooned, garnished, gilded, gussied, and, of course, trimmed, Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.