Behold! The Lengths I Will Go To Create Warm Holiday Memories!

I admit that I tend to go a bit overboard during the holidays. I spend too much money, bake too many treats, deck too many halls and generally spread myself too thin. I know this about myself and yet I am powerless to change. I am a victim of a little known disorder called Santa-itis.

It's hereditary; I blame my mother.

Just how overboard do I go? Lord, that would take days to explain..

Let us begin with the tree…When Hugh and I were first married, I was adamant that we have a freshly cut tree. Having grown up with a sister whose mold allergy prevented us from ever having had a live tree, I felt completely gypped of the whole tree-cutting experience which, in my fertile imaginings went something like….

…The happy couple loads up the station wagon and drives to the pristine forest as Christmas carols play softly on the radio. Once arrived, they begin the search for the perfect tree, not too big, certainly not too small and with just the right amount of fullness to neatly fill the space in the living room, next to the fireplace on which mantel the stockings will be hung. Upon finding the perfect tree, the happy wife gazes on approvingly as her handsome husband fells the tree with one solid swing of the axe, hefts the tree over his well muscled shoulder and carries it back to the car. With the tree attached securely to the station wagon’s roof, the lovely wife twists the top off the red plaid thermos of hot cocoa that she has lovingly prepared. The happy couple gazes adoringly at one another while sipping the cocoa amid the pristine forest, the scent of pine flirting with their nostrils….

…..Fantasy? I’d like to introduce you to Reality.

Our first Christmas, Hugh and I picked up our tree at a temporary tree lot in the parking lot of our local supermarket so, no pristine forest for us. And, while the tree was certainly the right size, it wasn’t exactly fresh, having seen many a day since the blow of the axe. In fact, the volume of pine needles left in our wake as we dragged the tree to Hugh’s truck rivaled the needles that remained on the tree by the time we got it home (although, there were certainly enough left to shed throughout the holiday season, requiring daily vacuuming; what fun!). Also, the non-freshness factor stoked my inherent paranoia; I spent the remainder of the holiday season fearing that the tree would spontaneously burst into flame under the massive weight of lights with which I had decked it. Good times. And, I digress.

Needless to say, while that was the last year that we had a fresh tree, it was the first year of my decorating mania.

These days, a 71/2 foot pre-lit Douglass fir graces our living room; on occasion, Hugh and I will gaze adoringly at one another while sipping hot cocoa and admiring our tree so, the fantasy didn’t die.

You know, completely.

We put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving and there it will stay until January 2. It takes approximately three hours to decorate the tree, including the various paraphernalia that we have to accompany it.

The ornaments gracing the tree have been collected throughout the thirteen years of our marriage and are reminders of the time that we have shared. Each one is special and, to us, priceless. Descriptions of my favorites would fill an entire entry but, I won’t bore you with that. Or, maybe, I will…mwaa, ha, ha, ha….

Where was I?

Our tree topper is a traditional star. The children take turns each year, placing the star on top of the tree and, amazingly, they never fight over whose turn it is. It is our very own version of the Christmas miracle.

Underneath the tree is a tartan plaid tree skirt featuring three cross-stitched panels. The first panel depicts a father and his son, trudging home through the snow with a freshly-cut Christmas tree (in an era pre-vacuum cleaner! Gasp! Whatever will the lady of the house do?!). The second panel shows a joyful family dashing through the snow in a horse-drawn sleigh. The third panel reads Merry Christmas, a happy phrase surrounded by holly leaves and berries. I stitched the panels myself, long before I met Hugh and I haven't cross-stitched since. I'm not sure why.

Circling the tree skirt is a toy train. Hugh bought it for my birthday the year we began dating and it is as special to me as any of the ornaments on the tree.

Thus ends the description…of our indoor tree!

We also have an outdoor tree. While it is smaller in stature than the indoor tree, it is equally well decorated and massively lit because, yeah, see above: the topic of this post.
Having two trees is nothing compared to my younger sister who, suffering from an even worse case of Santa-itis, has a tree in every room of her house. Ok, not every room but, only because she couldn’t think of an acceptable theme for a bathroom tree.

I kid because I'm jealous, obviously.

In addition to the trees, we also put up a holiday village, numerous garlands, wreaths, candles, lights and other sundry decorations; all thanks to my disease.

Speaking of, my Santa-itis rears its ugly head most viciously in the kitchen; tune in next time when I regal you with tales of gingerbread men and drop-sugar cookies.

You know, if I haven’t lost you, already.

Snowed Under

Yesterday’s blizzard dropped more than sixteen inches of snow on our town which made the drive home from work a real bitch, pardon my French. By the time I made it home, there was so much snow in my driveway, I had to completely shovel it off before I could park in the garage and, people, I have four-wheel drive.

And, a back-ache; shoveling is a bitch.

I didn’t let the blizzard spoil the anniversary of my 29th birthday, however. Hugh and the children took me to the only open restaurant in our small town and we had a pleasant, if rather quiet, dinner. Quiet because we were the only patrons in the place, the storm keeping away the general populace.

When we got home, I opened my present which was the Kodak Easy Share camera with the printing dock. I have wanted this fabulous piece of technology for quite some time and lord knows I dropped enough hints which, to his credit, Hugh obviously picked up on. Of course, I assumed that, should he decide to get it for me, it would be for Christmas, but, Hugh explained that he wanted me to be able to actually use it at Christmas like, duh.

Hugh is smart. And, generous.

And I’m not just saying that since I came out of the blog-closet on Thanksgiving and he now knows about, and reads, this rag on occasion.

Really.

Speaking of Hugh (who is sooo good looking, generous and smart), he spent the majority of the evening shoveling snow off the back porch. His back aches today, too.

And, while I curse the snow on the roads, in my driveway and on the kids trampoline, which we kinda sorta accidentally (in a totally non-lazy way, I swear) never got around to taking down for the winter; its frosty whiteness does serve to put me in the holiday spirit; tonight, I shall bake cookies!

And, tomorrow (turn away from the computer if you are reading, dear); more shopping!

Fa,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la!

Oh, the Weather Outside Is Frightful

When I left the house this morning, I wasn’t expecting it to snow eight inches within the course of two hours. Had I been, I would have forgone the high heeled pumps and short-sleeved sweater in favor of boots and a down coat and I wouldn’t be sitting here now freezing my ass off and dreading the drive home.

One thing is certain, I won’t be driving anywhere once I do make it to the house, which is a shame considering that today is the 9th anniversary of my 29th birthday and Hugh had planned to take me out to dinner, a plan that he will be sorry to abandon. However, while I love me some gourmet food, I do not love it enough to risk our lives on snow-packed roads after dark and even Hugh cannot argue with that logic; he wants to live to see the 11th anniversary of my 29th birthday, after all.

All of which means one of two things; a, we are eating leftovers or b, Hugh will cook his famous Boy Scout hash for dinner.

Hmm.

Maybe taking our lives in our hands by driving to the restaurant in a blinding snowstorm isn’t such a bad option after all.

Throwing In the Towel

Thanksgiving with my parents was fabulous. As usual, my mom outdid herself on the meal, serving three kinds of pie in an attempt to make everyone happy. Of course, you can’t please everyone and this year it was the Man-Cub’s turn to be disappointed; no chocolate cream for him.

To make up for crushing his Thanksgiving dreams, we took the child to see Happy Feet whereupon all was made right in his world.

Otherwise, during our stay, we watched a lot of movies, caught up on local gossip and ate so much left-over turkey we feared we might develop feathers as a side effect. We also took great pleasure in watching the antics of the three hundred squirrels who reside in my parents’ neighborhood. My parents, it should be noted, take no such delight in this particular activity since they long ago deemed the squirrels to be vermin and would like nothing more than for the whole lot of them to relocate to places unknown. Sadly for them, this won’t happen anytime soon since my children spoiled the little bastards with the promise of peanuts; ginormous piles of which they left outside each morning for their hoarding pleasure. My parents have no intention of continuing this habit, of course, which means we now have to pray the little dears don’t become violent while in search of their next nut fix; squirrels are quite dangerous, after all.

Speaking of squirrels, Hugh and I put up our Christmas tree on Saturday night after traveling home from my parent’s house for that express purpose and not, as Hugh would have you believe, because I was afraid that the squirrels would eat my face off in my sleep once they discovered the empty peanut bag in the garbage can. Honestly.

Still, I have to admit a brief shiver ran up my spine when Hugh re-enacted the “squirrel in the tree” scene from that National Lampoons Christmas Vacation movie. But, only for a second.

And I digress.

Our tree looks lovely, the rest of the house is pretty much decked out for the holidays and on Sunday, and I endured the annual torture that is the Christmas card photo shoot. Neither of my offspring was thrilled and, to be honest, I finally just kind of gave up and let them fight it out. I think it might be the best Christmas card I have ever done.

It is certainly the most honest.

It Takes a Child to Raise a Village

My determination paid off at Friday night’s charity auction; I won the porcelain carousel that I wanted. Granted, it took some doing, I hovered in the general vicinity of the piece and, every time someone bid, I mentally noted the amount then, with seconds to spare before the bids closed, I swept in with an offer five dollars higher than the highest bid.

Although I could not have been more pleased, I played it cool so as not to hurt the feelings of the losing bidders. The Man-Cub, on the other hand, made no effort to hide his glee and instead broadcast it to the entire room via a touchdown dance so showy and obnoxious, it would have embarrassed a pro football player.

At least it was all for a good cause. I’m not certain of the final numbers but it looks like we pulled in quite a good deal of money; hopefully enough to ensure that our charitable works will be funded for another year.

Speaking of charity, as I was standing in line to pay for the carousel, Oscar appeared next to me, grabbed the ticket from my hand and proceeded to pay the bill. I argued, of course, but he insisted and I now own a carousel paid for by my father-in-law. I kissed Oscar on the cheek, thanked him profusely and invited him and Emily to come by the house later in the week to see my holiday village, the center of which will be my new carousel.

Saturday, I set about constructing the village and, with more than a little help from the Man-Cub (the Girl was at a birthday sleep-over), managed to get the entire thing set up within a few hours and, it looks fabulous if we do say so, ourselves.

Sunday, Hugh surprised me by suggesting that we drive to the neighboring city to do some Christmas shopping. The kids and I were totally up for it and I’m really glad we went because it gave them a chance to see Santa; something that the Girl will probably have outgrown by next year. As it was, both kids readily hopped up on the big guy’s lap, whispered their fondest wishes and posed for a photo.

Once our shopping was done, we headed to Barnes & Noble so the Man-Cub could use a gift card that he received for his birthday back in September. Hugh’s eyes glazed over the minute he realized we were heading into a book store but, once he discovered the aisle containing books about coin collecting, he rather enjoyed himself. In fact, it was all I could do to pull him away.

While Hugh was memorizing the value of his coin collection, I flipped through a book on vintage jewelry and was pleased to see a picture of a pin that I inherited from my grandmother. I was especially pleased to see how much the pin was worth and I made a mental note to call my sister to give her grief about how ugly she had declared the pin to be when I received it.

I need to remember to do that, actually.

For now, I am off to the dentist’s to have a cracked filling repaired which is way less fun than torturing my sister or admiring my fabulous holiday village.

But, there ya go.

It's going to take me a month to figure out how to get it all back into those boxes but, as Scarlett O'Hara would say, I'll think about that later.

Okey Dokey, Artichokey

My alarm failed to wake me this morning.

But, seeing as how I forgot to set it last night, I have no right to be annoyed.

Also, since my body is a well-oiled machine, functioning at a level that makes lesser women weep, I woke up right on time, anyway. This totally spared me from arriving late to my 7:30 meeting which, by the way, I ask you; who in their right minds schedules a meeting for 7:30 on a Friday morning and then fails to provide coffee? Who?

The adrenaline rush from waking up and realizing that I had come thisclose to oversleeping can only last so long and, currently, I am dragging ass like a cat with pinworms. And it’s only two o’clock. So much for the well-oiled machine.

At this rate, it will be a struggle to stay awake through tonight’s Holiday Festival fundraiser and, since I simply must win one of the auction items, it is imperative that I do so. After all, I can’t take a chance on some blue-haired old lady out-bidding me; I really, really want that porcelain carousel for my Christmas village! Must stay awake to the bitter-last possible minute to place a higher bid-moment, people!

Since the answer clearly lies in caffeine, and since caffeine can be found in both chocolate and coffee, both of which I am currently craving, I predict a Starbucks run in my near future. Mmmm…Peppermint mocha, yummy.

Know what else is yummy? Getting over three hundred dollars worth of Premiere jewelry for the low, low price of $19.97. Seriously, once the orders were totaled for my recent sales party, I had earned that much free booty. I cannot wait until it arrives and I can get with the bling.

Or whatever you kids are calling it these days.

Speaking of kids, the title of this post is one of the Man-Cub’s favorite sayings and, if you knew him, you would know how well it suits his personality. It’s like, his motto.

My motto, if I had one, would be; its all good, spoken in the voice of that turtle from Finding Nemo…it’s all gooood.

Credit card bill got you down? It's all goood.

Still scraping brain matter out of the ceiling fixtures? It's alll goood.

Like, totally, duuuude.

In Which Hugh’s Head Explodes Upon Opening the Credit Card Bill

I told y’all I was getting a little carried away with the holiday shopping this year.

On the plus side, should the Girl start her period today, she won’t be scarred for life by the thought that she bears responsibility for her father’s messy demise; I’ve got it covered.