Interrupted
My Life Thus Far
My Mother Was Such A Christmas Nazi
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I'm so, so tired. I'm beyond tired. I'm physically
fatigued. I could lay my head down on this desk and fall
asleep easily. That should give you some insight on how
ready for bed I am. It's all a good tired, though. I had a
great day, indeed.
I'd planned on sleeping in today. Late. Really late. Noon
late, but Snookums had other plans. I knew we were going
to get our Christmas tree today, but he decided he wanted
to take the family to the Pancake House for breakfast.
Which was nice. I can't remember the last time we did
that. Soon after we got our food I remembered why we don't
go out to eat much as a family. Kiki refused to eat her
pancakes until she was allowed to open a tub of half and
half and dump it on them. That got a few looks from other
tables, but not as much as her eating the little ball of
butter they gave her like an ice cream cone. That child is
strange, but I love her.
After breakfast, we went to Hubert's Tree Farm to pick out
our Christmas tree. It's one tradition my mother passed
down that I actually held onto. The rest of them I burned
out of my memory. I took pictures and they're in my
myspace if you want to look at them (there's a link
below). It was a pretty good time. I was laughing my ass
off through most of it. We forgot to bring rope to tie
the tree to the car and we didn't measure the ceiling or
bring a tape to measure the tree, so I had Jason stand
next to it and figured if it was a couple feet taller than
him, it would be perfect. Somehow that measuring system
went array. Because this tree was a good 3 feet too tall.
That wasn't the funniest part, though. The hilarious part
was trying to get the tree down from the field to the
baling area. We didn't have rope, so Jason jammed it into
the trunk. The looks we got from everyone else in their
pick-ups and the well-equipped people with rope was
priceless. The retarded thing is, we've got a pick-up,
too! Why didn't one of us think to bring it? Hindsight is
20/20 they always say.
When we got the tree home, I knew immediately that it was
too big. So, Jason ran out and bought a flimsy little 12"
handsaw to trim it down a bit. He gave up after about 10
minutes and left me to my own devices. An hour and a can
of Pam later (to prevent the blade from sticking, of
course), I managed to lob off a foot of trunk and trim
down the top some. It looked good. It took us another
couple hours to finish all the decorating. Inside and out.
This year, we've got lights outside. A first for us. We
never had a facade of our own before, so there was no
point. This year we have commercial grade multi-colored
icicle lights, a REAL evergreen wreath (from the tree
farm) and a 4.5 foot artificial decorated tree on our
front porch. It's quite charming if I do say so myself.
After all is said and done, I'd have to say I had a really
fun time today. I've boycotted Christmas in the past
because my mother was such a Christmas Nazi (ALL things
Christmas!!!! Decorations in the bathroom!!!!!! Santa on
the toilet paper!!!!!), but the further I get from those
memories the more I can relax and let myself enjoy the
holiday and not just for the sake of the children. I'll
never reach the extent my mother did, but at least I can
walk into the house and not hate the smell of the tree
now. In fact, the lemony-pineness of our 12 year old
Douglas Fir has to be my most favorite pine smell of all.
The girls went to bed very happy tonight. No matter what's
going on with me, seeing them happy always makes me feel
good. After they were asleep, Snookums and I turned off
the lights, turned on some Christmas music and had a glass
of sparkling grape juice in front of the tree. Which led
to other things in front of the tree, which was
interesting to say the least. Quite spontaneous on his
part. Kudos to Snookums. I think I'm starting to like him
a little more these days. It's funny. I pay less attention
to him and he starts wanting my attention more. Men make
no sense to me.
My bed is calling. I desperately want to drift off to
sleep as easily as I did last night. So to prevent myself
from getting too tired (which then makes it even harder to
fall asleep), I'm going to bed now. Ciao and goodnight.
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