Day Off!

Alright, alright, I think I might finally be in the mood for Christmas. Yesterday afternoon while the baby was napping in her crib and the husband was snoozing in front of the TV, I decided to yank out the old Christmas tree. Hit by a rare combination of motivation and Christmas spirit, I finally began getting the house ready for the season.

In order to even get that far, I had to reorganize some of the attic just to reach the tree and decorations. I managed to lug the tree downstairs and assemble it before the baby woke up. Luckily ever single light on the tree was in perfect working order. It all fell together perfectly and now most of the tree is finished. We just have to hang some ornaments, but I've decided to leave most of the glass ornaments off of the tree this year, with the little one and all...

So far the baby hasn't tried to pull the tree down. She reaches out and touches it, but recoils at the pointy fake needles. They aren't sharp or anything, but I guess she's expecting to feel something different than the bristly, bushy appendages. I'm sure she'll grow bolder as she gets better acquainted with the tree.

The tree gets all squished in the box that houses it during it's long off season. We have to go around the tree, tediously straightening out every branch until it looks more like a real tree. I love having a fake tree mostly because I don't like the idea of killing a real one (I am a recycling-fanatic, but that's for another posting).

I put one ring of red garland around the tree, evenly spaced. The top always looks a little awkward for some reason, even with the angel in place at the top. This problem was neatly solved for the first time by placing a small wreath of red plastic berries on a circle of fine woodsy material. It's like a little red tree halo that the angle sits on.

So far that's the tree.

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I think a fun thing to do while the baby is little would be to take pictures of her with over-sized pieces of food at different family functions, outings, and such. We've sort of started doing this I think. The turkey drumstick picture was taken on a whim the day after Thanksgiving when I was busy processing the turkey carcass. Then, just this past weekend we took a picture of her in at a table in a deli in NYC with an enormous meatloaf sandwich in front of her. I think we're on to something.

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This past weekend was wonderful. We saw the tree at Rockefeller Center in the city. Big Tree! It was really cold and we were all bundled up. We walked around and saw some sights and had really big sandwiches for lunch in Times Square. Sadie had hot brisket, I had meatloaf, Rob had most of a 10 oz. cheese burger. It was outrageously expensive at a little under $70 with a tip. Still, the day went great even though Penny peed up her whole outfit and Sadie had to help me change her in the bathroom. The best part is that we were back home around 1pm.

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The best thing about today is that I HAVE THE DAY OFF! Those four words have the power to transform the day into something magical. I have so many plans including: prime the foyer, go shopping, work on cards, enjoy my life!

It doesn't end there though! I have tomorrow off too! I'm planning on buying some sneakers at Modell's. I have a coupon :-)

Tweaking the Holiday Season

I'll just jump right into this-after having one of the worst Thanksgivings of my entire life, I've been heavily contemplating how to make Christmas as enjoyable as possible. Is it all about perfect gifts, cards, hostessing?

If I succumb to the subliminal messages sent out over the airwaves, I will wind up charging thousands of dollars on merchandise that my friends and relatives won't want, don't need, that won't actually bring us any closer together, or prove once and for-all that I am all grown up now and have loads of money at my disposal!

The only bit of Christmas-fueled shopping pressure I have caved in to has to do with work. The eight nurses who work at my agency, myself included, get together for a holiday dinner and exchange a grab bag. It doesn't stop there though. I found out last year that they also break their own rule by giving everyone a little token gift, something small.

But small x 7 = not exactly cheap.

So, to avoid feeling like a jerk tomorrow night at dinner, I got everyone a coffee mug with 2 packets of gourmet hot chocolate that I'll put together with some red or green cellophane and put a little bow around it and shush it out a little bit and voila! Jerk feeling avoided. Then I'll come home and worry that maybe it was a little too much and think about that a hundred times over and over before falling asleep. (Mental note to self-do not drink coffee with dessert tomorrow.)

All in all, it'll come to about $45 with the wrapping stuff. Not too bad I guess, but there are other corners of my life where I could spend $30 here and $40 there. Singularly, it's not a fortune. "Don't be a scrooge, I tell myself." But add it all up and it's some serious coin.

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Q: What would be one of the greatest things we could do with Christmas to just improve it beyond our wildest dreams?

A: Rather than buy gifts for others, we could buy gifts for ourselves!

This is a genius idea on so many levels. Just picture it-gathering together with your family and friends, showing off all of the wonderful things that you've purchased, sort of like show-and-tell. You could discuss the price openly, candidly. Hell you could actually brag about just how cheap the stuff you bought was. This is a big no-no in our current Christmas tradition. By God, you could leave the tags ON!

I love the idea of oohing and aaaahing with my family over the wonderful things we've given ourselves. I could give Sadie a chunk of money and let her go to town. The only exception would be the baby, the little ones who can't really buy themselves gifts. We could make exceptions for the very young, the very old, and those who are disabled (provided they have a note from their doctor :-P ).

Some of your family members would spend outrageous amounts of money on themselves and you could just smile to yourself, shake your head, and say "Crazy Aunt Peggy, she doesn't know when to quit!" You wouldn't feel like your gift to her is completely out of proportion to her gift to you. There would be no keeping-up-with the-Aunt-Peggies to drive you crazy and/or into bankruptcy.

Other members of your family who are notoriously chintzy would just suffer with their own lame gifts to themselves. No hard feelings there!

Think of all the wrapping paper (aka TREES) we would spare if we were just giving gifts to ourselves!

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My Christmas Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to not spend too much money on presents
Courage to actually get to the mall before Christmas Eve
And the wisdom to never

buy an $80 prime rib roast ever again