Bah Humbug!

Holy shit, the holidays are stressful.

I remember looking forward to the cold winter after we moved here. I’m finally in a place where there are noticeable seasons! Not just double digits as a respite from the triple digits. I did not, however, factor in a traveling husband, a seemingly always bored restless six year old, and his mimic, the two year old.

Then i went and threw a Christmas tree into the mix. a real one, to boot! I could have just decorated one of the hundreds outside, but nooOOOO, i wanted one INSIDE the house.

Stupidass.

And i couldn’t wait for the husband to get back to get this done because a-he’s a zombie for at least three days after he gets back. time change, blah blah blah. and b-he’s getting back less than 2 weeks before Christmas! That’s not enough time to justify hauling the gigantic Christmas tomb out of the shed and up two flights of stairs, unpacking and finding the non-broken ornaments, fish hooking them, and handing them over to little hands to precariously hang from the three loose needles at the end of the bottom branch.

Then the cats want in on the action. It’s like i just planted a field of catnip that fits on a stick and in it’s own water source.

I hardly lifted a finger to decorate the thing, as i was still miffed at it from being on top of my new van. This tree was beautiful in the lot. Enough so that i didn’t mind forking over one too many $20’s to the lot attendant telling myself it was worth it because they trimmed the bottom and tied it to the roof.

That didn’t click in my brain until it was time to take it OFF the roof. It didn’t look that heavy when he hiked it over his shoulder and unceremoniously dumped it onto my car!!

My mom was busy in the house with a toddler screaming the paint off the walls, so i didn’t feel right asking her to help. Besides, it was raining, i only had one stool, etc etc. By the time i cut the ties, lifted it as high as i could and positioned it to somehow float down to the ground, i knew i was in trouble. Looking down the line of the trunk, i just pulled and hoped to God the neighbors were busy with whatever neighbors busy themselves with.

The trunk landed on my thigh and i considered it a success. It was about this moment i started fondly remembering our fake tree. The fake tree that i had for so long wrongly hated with a passion.

Covered in sap, and needles, and wet from head to toe (because this is Washington, afterall) it was finally in the house and I was done with the glorified branch.

So now we have a tree – with lights, even! The cats are happily eating it every hour of each day. One of them has found an interest in the gifts underneath it. I’m finding small shreds of paper alongside the needles.

The children cannot leave it alone. My little one keeps taking off the well-positioned glass balls and reestablishing them precariously on just the needles then squealing, “I dIIId IT!!”

Then the six year old Sheriff says something i can’t repeat on here, and repositions it appropriately with a huff.

That’s when i slap my forehead and go back to my mindless Plants vs Zombies game for fear that i will just take it all and set it out on the front porch.

kids included.

Then there’s the whole gifting thing. I never know what to get my husband. The man has the patience of a nursing mother of triplets when it comes to a product he wants.

That is to say, he just goes out and gets it his damned self, regardless of the bitching he gets from me about it.

As for Santa, i am going to have to ban all Christmas movies/shows/specials from the house, because my son is on a mission to find out every single contradiction and reality of the whole thing and he will not give up until he is asleep. He has the tenacity of a CIA agent with a superiority complex.

And Santa has officially been used by me as a weapon. Where’s the fun in that ?!! Anytime i need to my kid to remember to behave it’s , “Remember… he’s waaaatching youuuuuu.”

And i’m supposed to expect my kid to be excited when the pinnacle of all of this is that a strange fat man in a suit breaks into our house and leaves  gifts .. hopefully. ?!

And to throw it all off, my wedding anniversary is seven days before Christmas.

So i think i’ll begin a nightly routine of swimming my way out of a vat of spiked Egg Nog and asking Santa for a relaxing stay at Betty Ford’s little chalet.