Perfection Obsession

I usually decorate the tree by myself because Justin knows I'm SUPER particular about it. He'll help me get out the box and put the pieces together, but then he sits back and watches for the next couple hours while I do my perfectionist work.

This year Carrie wanted to help... When we first got married and had our first Christmas tree, I went out and bought full sets of matching gold and red ornaments; Matching tree skirt and all. We have a few random ornaments that I either don't put on, or hang on the back because they don't match...

Carrie pulled a couple out of the box and wanted to hang them up. So for the first time in 6 years, I gave in and broke my obsession with perfection. Kind of.... I said to myself, 'ok fine, we'll put non matchy ornaments on too'. Except because we only had a few, I decided we needed to make more homemade ornaments so it would be balanced with the matchy ones. I decided to turn it into a fun-filled mommy/daughter project, but shortly after I started I realized a not quite 3 year old isn't all that interested in molding clay into stars, folding paper into cubes with pictures, or making layered felt snowflakes.... She did like to help paint the pinecone; Pink of course :)


Other than that, she colored for a couple minutes then left the table to play while I made a monstrous mess with crafty things and lots and lots of glue gunning.... The results were -Brigham picture cube - Yarn flower - baby Jesus in the manger - felt bird - 2d paper ornament shapes - felt ornament - felt snowflake - red chile peppers - three mini wreaths - clay star of Bethlehem - Carrie handprint Santa face - pink glittery pinecone..... etc....


Add those to our few random ones we already had and our tree is now uniformly matchy with gold and red ornaments, and uniformly unmatchy with plenty of fun random homemade ornaments. Only I could make unperfection have a perfectionist element....