Christmasy

I finally decided to force myself into some Christmas spirit.  Last year, I had none.  Double none.  I barely got a tree up, and I put out none of my Christmas collections.  This year, I decided to try to trick myself into some cheer by decorating the house.  I thought if I surrounded myself with the accouterments of Christmas, maybe I would start to feel a little of the spark of it inside, too.

With that philosophy in mind, I went to get my tree this afternoon.  I am a hard-core girl power advocate.  I can do it ALL ALL BY MYSELF.  I can change my own flat tires, jump my own dead batteries, and all that, but by all that is holy, next year, I am taking some hapless man with me to deal with this Christmas tree thing.  I don't care if I have to guilt him, con him, marry him, feed him, pay him, or what. I HATE trying to cut down my own tree.  HATE it.  This is the second time I've done it, the first being the year Dad had his heart attack, and it wasn't any better this year.  In theory, there are guys with power saws on the tree lot, but they are never within five hundred miles of me and the tree I pick.  It took me about fifteen minutes of hacking at the poor cedar I picked (I always get cedar; I like the smell) to fell it, and then I had to haul it to the "sleigh" because Billy and Bubba were still power sawing somebody else.  I was not in a "merry mood."

I have been going to this place literally since I was a child, though.  My parents have known them forever, and I have run over those hills for things that have nothing to do with Christmas trees, so I wasn't in a bad mood long.  I got a Diet Mountain Dew in their new cafe and looked over their gift shop.  They had a Santa hat shaped like a jester's hat.  Well, you just know that I was going to have to have that...  I paid for my tree, had it tied to the top of the Cruiser, and came on home.

I took the time to make a playlist on iTunes that I called "Chrimma" and set it spinning and then I started fighting the tree for the second time today.  (Going to find a man next year.  Oh yes.  Going to find a man.  Not for anything romantic necessarily.  Just for the freaking TREE.  Although, I suppose I could promise him something romantic in exchange if needed if that's what it takes.  You can see what I've been reduced to here....)  I finally got it in the stand, brought it in the house, and it started wobbling.  I lay down on the floor to adjust it, and it wobbled even more.  This is after about fifteen minutes of wobbling in the stand outside after I made the required "second cut" with my little saw at home.  Then the thing I had been trying to prevent happened.  It fell.  I shoved it hard when it started going over, so I did not actually wind up with cedar on top of me, but it was a near thing.  Again, this is not a situation designed to raise "Christmas cheer."

I finally cursed/coaxed it into a stable position after taking the stand completely off and putting it back on again (easy to do now that it was horizontal).  Then I broke out the new big colorful LED lights I bought on sale after Christmas last year.  It's just chock-full of lights now, just the way I like my tree.  They don't do fancy flashy things, but I found last year that my migraines don't really like the flashy ones anymore.  I haven't put ornaments on it yet, but I may get to that later on tonight.  To me, the lights are the nice part, anyway.  They make the tree.  I like to have all the lights off and music on and just look at the tree with the lights sometimes and unwind when I'm tired.

I moved from the tree debacle to putting out the Santa and nativity collections.  This year, I didn't put out all the pieces I have.  I chose my favorites instead.  Many of them are special because either I made them, got them on a trip somewhere (like my Waterford nativity from Ireland), or somebody I love gave them to me.  I don't know why I forget how much of a pleasure there is in just the unwrapping and remembering that goes along with these collections.  That is probably actually the greatest joy of them to me, looking at them and thinking, "That one came from Mrs. Ruth.  I made that one when I still worked at Fleur de Terre...."

I'm going to go now and get my Santa plates out of the cabinet for the first time in two years, put some leftover eggplant parmigiana on one, pop it into the microwave.  Then, I'm going to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation like I do every year the night I put up my tree.  I'm going to take my Christmas back from the things that try to pull me out of it, try to destroy it.  It is totally my choice if they get to do that.  I think I choose, in spite of falling trees and all other difficulties, Christmasiness.