T’is the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la, ha ha HA!
I’m not a “Bah, humbug” sort of
person. As much as I love the holidays,
I dread ‘em too.
We haven’t
even had turkey yet, with my mother’s –wonderful- stuffing (though it’s coming
up soon). It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving
without it – and a shout out and thanks ‘cause she always hides some leftovers
for me; siblings can kiss my rear, I have first dibs. Seniority has its privileges.
The Christmas tree kicks it off for
me. This is the part I dread. We’ve always had real trees, I always put ‘em
up two weeks before Christmas, and they’re always down before New Years
Eve. There’s a reason for that.
When my
boys’ were little we had BIG Christmas trees.
I mean –really- big. Eighteen to
twenty two foot tall trees. Bringing it
in and standing it up was an all day event, and it took all of us to do it.
The old
living room had an open ceiling to the loft, so a huge tree wasn’t a
problem. Getting it into the house and
standing it up was. It really, really,
REALLY was.
Thing 3 and
Thing 4 learned to be the anchors after we dragged our current behemoth tree
into the house. BOTH of them had to hold
down the base of the trunk while the rest of us tried to pull it up. Ropes, pulleys, muscle and stubbornness were
all employed. I almost launched myself
over the railing one year, all my fault, because I thought it would be a good
idea to tie a rope around my waist to pull the tree up. That was a really bad idea.
Once the
tree was standing we had to tie it off to the stairs going up to the loft, lift
it into the tree stand, and the boys would disappear. Sometimes they are much smarter than I give
them credit for.
Tree up,
kids’ gone hiding, and Mama’s gonna decorate.
Then comes the next fiasco.
I’d get the
ladder out, kitchen chairs and everything else I could think of to climb
on. The hook to the sky-light was a
bonus. We had a sky-light in the master
bathroom and it took an extendable hook to crank it open and closed. That hook worked good hanging ornaments on
the tree until I lost the grip on a tree limb. Then the d*&m ornaments got
launched! They didn’t just hit the
floor. They hit the walls, the ceiling… It was with luck when they actually got hung
on the tree. Glass ornaments had a
special place on the tree, within my reach from the floor and above child and
pet access.
Cats and
dogs didn’t help. If you’ve ever had a
cat and a big tree you’ll understand this one.
The cats liked to climb into the tree.
The dogs, for whatever reason, wouldn’t chase the cats until they got
into the tree. The kids chased the dogs
that chased the cats… Let the chaos
continue!
The tree
has always been down by New Years, with a reason. The cats and dogs learned to drink out of the
tree stand, so by New Years it was a major fire hazard. I don’t know –why- the water in the tree
stand tasted so much better than the water in the pet’s bowls, or the toilet
when someone forgot to close the lid, but it apparently did.
I did manage to get a lil’ smarter
when it came to taking down the tree though, after years of practice. I used a chainsaw in my living room, cut the
tree into sections, and out the door it went.
The ornaments went back in their boxes (I’ve got some that are older
than me), safely stored away and the tree went in the fire-pit. I managed to get my house back together
without killing anyone – pets or children – so I could do it again in twelve
months.
Happy Holidays,
ya’ll!
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