christmas with the sprinks

Welcome to day two of my installment of things I haven't gotten around to writing about this year...

My brother, sister and I all grew up in the same house. We had the same parents and went to the same school and celebrated the same holidays. Somewhere along the road my brother became Christmas crazy. Perhaps it stems from the fact that our father used to outline the entire outside of his house in white lights during the Christmas season. Actually, that was only the beginning. He outlined the entire outside and inside--around door frames, windows, etc.--in white lights (because white is somehow classier than colored). He put lights on the trees in front of his house and lights in the bushes. He eventually added those lighted deer to his repertoire and may even have lined the driveway in lights. At one point all this putting up and taking down of lights became bothersome, so he eventually just left them up year-round (although I believe the deer are tucked away at the end of the season). Now that I've typed all this out, I understand how my brother became Christmas crazy; I'm just wondering how my sister and I escaped this path to insanity. As much as I joke; however, Christmas at the Sprinkel house is truly magical. Outlined below is a look at their house the day after Thanksgiving (*note: the tree in my house was not erected until December 13th).

How many lights can you put on one scrawny tree in your front yard? Enough to have it viewed from outer space is the only answer suitable for Jay. I somehow became his assistant in this project and found myself outside unraveling balls of lights during the first real cold blast of the season.

Make sure you go up and down each branch because nothing looks worse than a tree with lights that don't extent the full length of the branches. That's Christmas Lighting 101, folks.

One--or maybe two--more strands of lights, and we should be good to go!

Too much? You may think so by day, but wait and see how this beauty shines at night.

This is Christmas Tree #3 in the Sprinkel household. Number one is the white one (pictured above) in the office, which is visible from the front window when driving by the house; number two greets you in the foyer when you walk into the house; number three is the tree under which the presents reside in the family room, and I think there may have been a number four in the girls' room upstairs. By the way, Jay decided to flock the tree this year, and "flocking" became our running joke throughout the weekend.

Here's my sister-in-law making her first wreath. She's pretty artsy--and crafty--and she did an amazing job with the garbage bag full of magnolia leaves that she swiped from the tree in her friend's front yard. Check out her blog Plume Dandy to see how crazy (and fun!) life is with four kids ages six and under. It makes flocking a tree look easy...