holiday crafts

A few years ago we received a gift from my dear friend Stacey. It was a whole package of ornament crafts for us to do together as a family. We had so much fun, that we made it an annual tradition. This year I decided we should make a holiday banner, kind of like the one I had seen in the Pottery barn catalog several years ago. So off I went to the craft store to get everything necessary to complete my "vision". I chose a color palette (because every good craft begins with a defined color palette) of light blue, lime green and red. I came home with all of the notions to decorate a beautiful holiday banner with my family. So after dinner we get everything ready to craft. We have the Christmas music in the background, the fire in the fire place, we are all in a good mood etc....Emma begins to work on her letter and pulls out a button that she wants to use. The button is gaudy gold with brown detailing. Did she not get the memo about the specified color palette? I thought I had spelled it out clearly to the entire family. They were to do whatever they wanted just using the right color palette. I did not care how they decorated their felt letter I just wanted it all to match. I even organized ribbons and buttons so that they were ALL in the right colors. So anyway, Emma then proceeds to pull out a dark green (not lime green) holly button. Meanwhile, Hannah is trying to use a tacky looking gold star thing on her letter. I think this is the point that I lost it. I simply explained that I knew that I was being anal retentive (it is always good to be self aware) but that it was really important to me that they use the right colors. After all, my "vision" needed to be fulfilled. It was at this point that Emma said my vision (she used air quotes AND a sarcastic tone!)was not making for a happy holiday atmosphere. Matt made himself useful by laughing sarcastically in the background, as he had not joined us in the craft making yet (someone had to do the dishes). I suggested that the girls do another banner of their own that I would not be micromanaging for color scheme adherence. OK, I did feel a little bad about this suggestion but I was already wondering why I had asked them to help me when they so clearly could not see my "VISION". Matt then joins us to help get things back on the right track. He sits down and pulls out a ruler to measure where the letters are going to go on the felt. After all, any good engineer needs to account for exact measurements, right? He thought our letters looked a little uneven. Hannah could not help but see the irony. We are all a little anal in our own way. (some more than others) We shared a good laugh. In the end, after the banner was complete the girls all agreed that it looked better having stuck to a well defined color palette. They also agreed that Daddy was just as anal retentive as Mommy!