"Fair As You Are Able"

People, look East!  The time is near,

Of the crowning of the year.

Make your house fair as you are able,

Trim the hearth and set the table.

People, look East and sing today.

Love, the Guest is on the way!

That is one of our favorite Advent songs around here.  We especially love to sing it while we're hanging the ornaments on the Jesse tree.  I focused on the words "fair as you are able" this weekend, and we used the song for inspiration as we continued to prepare our hearts and home for celebrating the birth of Christ.

Cleaning and decorating.  Every year these things get me a little down because the part of me that longs for things that are neat, orderly, lovely, and picturesque especially longs for a pristine home and gorgeous decorations at this time of year.  Imagine the most beautiful magazine photograph you've seen of a home decorated for Christmas.  That's what I want.  And of course, I don't have!  But this weekend wasn't about perfection and decor worthy of Better Homes and Gardens.  It was about making things as fair as we were able, and it turned out to be good lesson for my heart this Advent.  

CLEANING: Saturday morning we set the troops to work and got a decent amount of organizing and cleaning done around the home. (By Saturday afternoon, you couldn't really tell.)  And my generous, fabulous mother helped me finished a little this morning after Mass - she cleaned my stove top, I cleaned the bathroom, and somehow it finally feels like our home is slowly transforming into a worthy place to hold Christmas celebrations.

even the little ones don't escape chores :)

SPIRITUAL LIFE: Speaking of "transforming into a worthy place" to celebrate the coming of Christ...  Russ and I did a tag team Confession run on Saturday, one of us running through the snow and cold into the church while the other stayed in the car with the kids.  Fair as we are able - we didn't have time to prepare or do a thorough examination of conscience, but we were both so grateful to have fit it in!  

PLAY: The photos were less than lovely, but I captured a sweet moment of the girls "reading" books of the Nativity and arranging some of our Nativity figures along the way.

DECORATING: Saturday afternoon we set out in 11 degree - feels like 0 degrees - weather to choose a Christmas tree.  It was so cold and uncomfortable, we ended up "choosing" practically the first tree we came across.  I missed our tradition of scouring the lot for the perfect tree, but we chose as fair as we were able under the circumstances, and I admit, now that it's lighted and decorated, it's a pretty nice one!  (Speaking of decorations, here's my post from last year about how our Christmas tree simultaneously ridiculous and the most beautiful Christmas tree in the world!)

HAIR: My hair is beyond help, but I was able to tackle the guys' hair this evening.  THANK GOODNESS.  I could hardly look at those shaggy dogs for much longer :)  Christmas haircuts are done.

before.  obviously.

Little by little, we are trimming the hearth, setting the table, preparing out hearts, and decorating our home.  It's not perfect; there are still crumbs on the floor, fingerprints on the fridge, and large portions of the tree with no ornaments.  Better Homes and Gardens isn't calling to do a photo shoot here.  But we're preparing as fair as we are able.  I hope that when my children get older they remember the joyful anticipation and preparations for the Christ child and know that as fair as we are able is all He asks of us.  

Step Aside, Martha.

Once in a while I dream about being Martha Stewart (minus the felony and jail time) - like when she showcases her amazing vegetable and herb gardens, or displays her gorgeous Autumn decorations which are the visual epitome of harvest bounty, or when she offers tutorials on how to make adorable canvas sunhats for babies out of materials leftover from previously attempted Martha Stewart canvas projects.  

So it's out there - there's a lot I like about Martha.  Except, not at Christmastime.  Because if you've ever perused the holiday issue of her magazine, Living, you may, like me, find that it falls flat.  There are beyond copious amounts of beautiful decorations... maybe a little too much glitz and glitter for my taste, but none-the-less, her home is superbly decorated.  There is no doubt left in your mind that it is Christmas and the decorating began months ago.  But, I don't care for it.  It's usually theme based - a concept, an idea, a color.  And everything has to fit into those conceptual boundaries.  Everything.

Christmas by the seashore

Crazy gaudy goldness

Country angels and stars, a study in red and white.

All images from marthastewart.com
(I realize these are not all trees that she herself may have decorated ,
nor have they necessarily been in her actual home...)

In my humble I-don't-really-have-a-decorating-style-at-all opinion, this type of decorating seems sterile.  Her home looks lovely, but to me, it doesn't conjure all that we typically hold dear at Christmas.  Home, family, friendships, Faith.  Any given year, I may see the magazine and immediately know that her theme is "Woodland Christmas abounding in birch bark, twigs,  and hints of gold," or "Christmas of Yore accented with Victorian Lace, pearl ornaments, and ribbon candy."  But I've never looked at her decorating and seen the joy of Christmas past and present -   the joy that comes from sharing the best season of all with the ones you love.

Anyway, that's our decorating theme.  It's not fancy or fine.  The theme is Home.  The theme is Family.  And it's abundantly evident on our home-y Christmas tree.  There is no concept, idea, or color scheme to convey.  It's a mish-mash of family memories, and I love it that way.  Our tree holds many ornaments from my  late Grandma Louise - beaded ornaments and liquid embroidery ornaments, ornaments my mom has made throughout the years, ornaments that I made when I was younger - salt dough and sewn, and the ornaments that my children have started to work on - mostly crazy marker things (very modern...) and glitter atrocities.  Last year the kids even had some interesting pipe cleaner creations woven among the branches.  And of course, because the tree is about family and it's my family that decorates it (and redecorates it throughout the season) there are unattractive clumps of ornaments here and there and there are some areas with no ornaments at all.  Frankly, parts of our tree look totally ridiculous;  it's the most beautiful tree I've ever seen.

Somehow, year after year, we've managed to have the most  perfect Christmas tree of all.  So step aside, Martha.  We've got this one.