Thursday, December 4, 2014

Inspired

Inspired by the Broadmoor's Christmas lights, we decided to put some of our own up.  I say "we" but really it's just me who does the decorating around the holidays.   Ben does all kinds of useful things around the house, but leaves the holiday decorating to me, probably in part because I'm so opinionated about how things should look.   

But this year in a stroke of additional inspiration I enlisted Paul's help.  Once I decided to surrender control and let him do things the way he wanted, we made a great team.  

Not only did he have definite ideas about where the lights should go, but he hauled the big ladder out of the shed, got it set up safely and confidently climbed it to hammer in the few nails that were needed and to place the lights on the porch roof. 

How he learned this I'm not sure --maybe by watching Ben or from his work on the Haunted House sets at school in October--  but he certainly managed it all without much help from me.  

He was much more analytical than me about the spacing of the lights, calculating how to weave them through the balcony so they would look evenly spaced and planning where to use the lights with green cords as opposed to the ones with white cords.    I think he was quite proud of how it all turned out and I really enjoyed working with him and seeing what he could do.

Paul was ready to be in charge, and I'm glad I let him.  It's not easy to surrender control, but sometimes it's worth it!



2 comments:

  1. And next year he'll have many more ideas of his own. Good job, Mom! I want to put up lights--everybody else is--actually I want Jim to to it but he's not willing and I don't have the time. His argument is that we are still a work in progress around here. Can't argue with that.

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  2. We put up a few lights too. I wish Paul had used his skills here as Drew would have been happy to let him do it! I love lights and yours look terrific. Cozy and happy. LeeAnna

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