Christmas time is in full swing at our house. We got home from our trip this weekend and got started right away on decorating. I decided that we would make do with what we have already, this year. I unpacked carefully and took inventory of everything. The house is covered in garland and bows and ornaments galore. It is our favorite time of year. The only thing we needed was a Christmas tree and garland for the tree.
I always would string popcorn garland with fresh cranberries. For YEARS. After Christmas, I would hang it off of the fence so the birds could feast on it. A few years ago, we were getting ready for Christmas and my husband came to me and told me he hated the popcorn garland. He was very emphatic about it. I didn't know that someone could feel so strongly about garland, but he did. So we just use tinsel garland now instead. I LOVE beaded cranberry garland.
The problem is that it would be $100 bucks to buy enough to cover the tree, plus I always forget to order it ahead of time. One day, I will buy my 90 yards of wood cranberry bead garland, but not this year.
We decorated the house Saturday and that night we planned to sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate and watch a Muppet Christmas Carol. I also planned to try some stained glass cookies that I found on Pinterest.
Well, that turned out to be a comedy of errors. I found a cream cheese sugar cookie dough recipe. I made the dough and froze it ahead of time. I followed the directions. They looked promising. I popped them in the oven and walked away.
A few minutes later, I smelled smoke. It was weird because they weren't in there long enough to burn. I open the oven door and smoke comes pouring out. The smoke alarm is going off and my husband followed me into the kitchen. Something must have spilled in the bottom of the oven and now there was a fire in the oven. I pulled out the cookies. My husband just stood next to me and did nothing. He just watched the flames like:
I grabbed a bag of flour and threw it on the fire to put it out. I saw my dad put out a toaster fire that way once - in his underwear on a cold January morning. I still need therapy after witnessing that.
Anyway, the fire was out. I finished baking cookies and all was right with the world. They looked great when they came out. Except that the middle stuck to the parchment paper and I couldn't get it all off. I figured a TINY little bit of wax paper never killed anyone, but I googled it just to make sure. We built the fire and I proudly gave the stained glass/wax paper cookies to the kids. I didn't tell them about the wax paper part. Bad Mom Award.
They bit into them. "Mom, these are the worst cookies I ever tasted. They aren't even sweet. Gross." Whatever. I ate them all. Theirs and mine. With the wax paper. Like a fat woman with some killer PMS. They were good, my kids were just being haters. We watched our movie and had a nice time together.
The next day we went out to get a Christmas tree. We still get a live tree and I remember Lowes having good prices on them. So we went to Lowes and they had 2 trees for $50 and no garland. Home Depot had a tent out and we went over there. We picked out a decent one for $40 and I went in to get some garland. They had all kinds of ornaments, stars, lights for the tree but no garland. I went to a store associate. "Do you have any garland for the tree?" She shook her head. "Any tinsel? Beads? Angel Air? Angel Dust? Crack Cocaine?" Just kidding, I didn't ask for crack. She said, "No, we don't have any of that." I pointed to the shelves which were decorated in red and green shiny garland. "But you decorated the Christmas section with it and you don't sell it?" I wasn't trying to be rude. I was just confused. She said, "No, we don't have any in the store." I was like:
I finally found some garland at the dollar store and we went home and my husband had the tree up in 5 minutes. I don't know how he does it. When I was a kid we had this crappy metal tree stand from 1967, that was all bent up.
It took 3 hours, books to balance it at the bottom, "Pass me the Bible and The Pokey Little Puppy..." , and a rope to finally nail it to the wall to get the tree up. I know I tell that story every year, I can't help it. It's my favorite. My parents should have just not fed one of us for a little while and invested in a new tree stand.
My husband strung the lights and we had family over for dinner and to help us decorate it. We told the story of our oven fire over dinner and my sister was like. "You don't own a fire extinguisher?" "No, is that a thing that people have?" She looked at me like I had 8 heads. "Yes, I have one, everyone has one." Really? I don't see fire extinguishers for sale ANYWHERE. "They sell them every where." I felt like a horrible, non-fire-extinguisher-having, negligent a-hole.
Then we went to decorate the tree and a strand of lights went out. "I'm not getting new lights. Jesus was born in a stable, the world is not perfect." So, the tree is not as shiny as I want it to be, but it looks nice with the ornaments on it.
We bid our family good bye but before we did I handed my sister our Christmas card. "You can't even mail it? Are you trying to save on the stamp?" I am stingy, I don't try to hide it. I smiled at her, "No, I just wanted you to be the first one to have it." She examined it. "OMG! You guys are in bathing suits. Your husband is wearing a BATMAN tee shirt. Really?" My husband peered over her shoulder and pointed to the card, "You like my sweat stain here?" I protested, "It's not a sweat stain - it's water from a WATER RIDE. Don't you see what I am trying to do there? I am going for the laid back, beachy kind of Christmas card this year." She rolled her eyes at me. I love her. I dish it right back to her. We diss each other all the time, in a non-threatening sister kind of way. I don't mind at all.
I do not stress about the holidays at all. I do what I can and then I spend time with the family and count our blessings. Well, I should say I didn't stress about the holidays until I was FORCED to get an damn Elf on the Shelf. But that's another REALLY long story for another time....
No comments:
Post a Comment