I’m sitting on my couch at this moment with a fire in the fireplace and the glow of our Christmas tree lighting up the room. I also just at a Dark Chocolate Peppermint Joe-Joe. Life may not get any better than this.
(I tweeted about Peppermint Joe-Joes yesterday and several people asked what they were. I’ll tell you. They are the most delicious thing ever. I just discovered them at Trader Joe’s. It’s basically an Oreo with peppermint filling dipped in dark chocolate. It’s the holy trinity of cookiedom.)
We ended up waiting to get our tree until Thursday afternoon which worked out perfectly because a cold front blew through earlier that day and it just felt right to be bundled up as we searched for the perfect tree. Granted, a red and white tent on a major street isn’t as festive as a Christmas tree farm, but there’s also not a Christmas tree farm that’s only three minutes from our house. I’ll take that tradeoff.
There was much debate between a Frasier Fir and a Noble Fir. In the past we have always been strictly Noble Fir people, but then last Christmas we didn’t get our tree until five days before Christmas and the only one left that would fit in our living room was a Frasier. I was a little disappointed at first but then I Charlie Brown’d it and decided it wasn’t such a bad little tree after all. And so this year I was open-minded to making a permanent switch to the Frasier, but the Noble won out in the end because we found one that was too pretty to pass up.
Normally I feel like the day we get our Christmas tree is the day we are most likely to go see a marriage counselor, but this year we managed to keep our spirits bright. Maybe it was because I’ve finally accepted that a ten foot tree won’t fit in our living room.
We brought the tree in the house and set it in the stand and that’s when we began the process of trying to get it straight. It’s also when we discovered that a small Eskimo had fallen under it and couldn’t get up.
After we sacrificed a few lower limbs to get it straight and argued a few more times about what constitutes a truly straight tree, it was all ready to be decorated. (I just re-read the previous sentence and feel the need to clarify that I mean the tree’s limbs, not any of our human limbs.) But we decided to wait until the next day so I could spend a full four hours putting lights on it. I have Christmas light OCD. I’m not content to just drape lights around a tree. I have to weave them in and out in a configuration that will make me weep and gnash my teeth when it’s time to take the tree down after Christmas.
So Friday afternoon, after Caroline got home from school, we decorated the tree. Later that night she was invited to a party, P was at the ranch hunting and I sat and admired the Christmas tree as I watched Scandal.
On Saturday morning we went to my nephew Luke’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. As of this writing, none of us have contracted the plague that I feel comes complementary with all Chuck E. Cheese experiences, but I’m sure there’s still time for it to happen. Caroline thoroughly enjoyed herself and won all manner of tickets that she wanted to cash in for valuable prizes, as long as you consider valuable prizes to be one Laffy Taffy and a small plastic lizard.
But I saw the long line for prizes and channeled my inner Bob Barker and played a little gameshow mind trick as I asked, “What if we don’t wait in this line to get Laffy Taffy and a lizard and drive through Krispy Kreme and get some donuts instead?” The price was RIGHT. SOLD.
Later that afternoon, P announced it was a good time to put up our outdoor lights. And so he bundled up and headed outside to start the process while I sat on the couch in the warm house and watched football. Then I started to feel bad that he was out there in the cold, but not bad enough to get off the couch. But, ultimately, I couldn’t let him do it all by himself so I put on two layers of pants, three pairs of socks, a scarf and a hat and went outside to help. Basically my help consists of cheering him on while he climbs up on a very tall ladder and occasionally encouraging him to test the electrical limits of the lights by joining more than three strands together.
However, I did make an executive decision this year. Once we take these lights down after Christmas, we are throwing them all out and starting over fresh next year. We’ve used the old school large colored bulbs for years now, but they are old and half the sockets are burned out and I can’t even tell you how many light bulbs we shattered during the whole process. Christmas lights have come too far for us to continue lighting our house using technology from the 1970’s.
On Sunday afternoon Caroline and I went to see Frozen and I cannot even express how much I loved it. Probably the best Disney movie that’s been out in years. It’s a sweet story with great music and perfect for this time of year.
And that was our weekend. Hope yours was good, too.