Well we are officially twelve days away from Christmas. I know this because, as I sat down with my coffee yesterday morning to enjoy the lights on our Christmas tree, the whole top half of our lights shorted out. And after saying a few bad words, I did what I always do in these situations and asked P to come figure out the problem. He said it was a fuse and that I needed to find the plugs on each strand of lights. I’m sure this would be easy if I followed all the “How to decorate the Christmas tree with lights” tutorials that I’ve pinned on Pinterest, but instead I use a method I call “Keep wrapping the tree in lights in a haphazard manner until you can see it from outer space and they look kind of even”. (Trademark pending)
And so this ensures that I won’t be able to find those plugs at the end of each strand until I take the whole thing down. P suggested I could just undecorate it and fix it, but that’s when I did the calculations in my head and realized there are only twelve days until Christmas and there is no way I’m taking the decorations off this tree and putting them back on.
Basically it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas as long as you just focus on the bottom half of our tree.
Update: We have now found an extension cord and have troubleshooted (troubleshot?) the problem. We have now regained 3/4 of our lights,thanks to the addition of a white extension cord that runs up the back of our tree. Keep your eye out for my Pinterest tutorial on “How to have a white trash Christmas” coming soon.
But it really stands to reason that this would be the state of our Christmas tree when you consider that our kitchen has been torn up since the week of Thanksgiving and we are living in total disorganized chaos that involves me saying things like, “Let me go get my wine glass out of the bathroom” and “The wooden spoon is in the skillet by my nightstand in the bedroom” and “the scissors have gone to heaven to live with Jesus”.
However, Caroline and I managed to get the family room decorated for Christmas. P went hunting this past weekend so Caroline and I had big plans to decorate for Christmas, eat a lot of junk food, and watch Christmas movies. It was cold and rainy which made this plan even better. I picked her up from school and we ran by Starbucks and then Whole Earth because she needed a warm jacket and has outgrown every single thing in her closet, including the jacket we bought last year that I thought for sure would last at least one more year. After that, we had to make a trip to the store I dread more than any other both at Christmas and always, Michael’s Crafts, because Caroline needed supplies for a Science project. I always leave there thinking I should’ve skipped the middle man and just drank a quart of bleach instead.
But then we got home, built a fire in the fireplace, changed into pjs, ordered pizza and decorated for Christmas while watching The Holiday. It was delightful and more than made up for Michael’s.
On Saturday we had big plans to do nothing and the guys also came to install our countertops and backsplash which meant we had to stay around the house. We did make a quick trip to Shipley’s to get donuts though because priorities. We’d also bought yarn the night before and decided to get our craft on and attempt to make these finger knit garlands I first saw on Nesting Place. Something comes over me every year at Christmas in spite of my dread of Michael’s and I like to make a craft of some sort. I have no explanation for this. It really goes against everything I normally believe in, which is essentially why make something you can buy on Etsy?
But Caroline and I agreed we found it to be a delightfully mindless way to spend a cold, rainy afternoon watching bad Hallmark Christmas movies where a girl unknowing falls in love with a prince and the queen disapproves but comes to love the common girl and the fact her family may have a white extension cord running up the back of their Christmas tree.
Because sometimes that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.