December 03, 2013
Weekend before ThanksgivingIf one more person scrunches their nose and exclaims �Already?� when I state that I have put up my Christmas tree, I�m gonna smack a bitch.
Seriously.
It is a used tree, number one, from K-Dog�s g�rents and we weren�t sure it was viable. So we thought we�d set it up and see how she goes and then one thing led to another and there we were, standing in the middle of Stein�s, watching our daughter throw Christmas pine cones on the floor, yelling �Ball!�
Number two, this is my first house. This is my first tree. And this is my first spark of Christmas cheer since I�ve been like 8 years old. I will have my little piece of magic lit up in the corner of my living room every evening until it�s not this year anymore and I will enjoy every stinkin� minute of it. Got my Glade plugins going, giving you a real sense of pine smell so you cannot mistake that Christmas has come early in my house. I have tinsel hanging from the weird little China display shelf in the kitchen. There�s stockings to be hung over my first fireplace (double-sided, yo) and we bought ornaments and not enough garland and bows which we might put out on our porch. We�re decking the halls. Because we can. And because they�re our halls to deck the crap out of. Damn it.
I�m about 99% certain that it�s a rule, anyway, once you have a child. You sign a birth certificate and promissory note stating you will here to forth celebrate holidays in an elaborate fashion so as to evoke the sense of real MAGIC into a child�s soul.
Well, folks. Magic evoked.
Give me some credit rather than a queer glare because this is how it�s going to be from now on. We�ll have Christmas cookies and Easter eggs and Thanksgiving turkey and tooth fairies flitting about the joint. We�re going to carve some mean pumpkins and fling ourselves into a giant pile of leaves and have a snowball fight in our back yard. Because we have a back freakin� yard and because we have a child and all that shazz is important for kids to experience.
You think it�s odd that I have a tree up already. I think it�s odd that I have a mortgage and more than one bathroom and living beings to care for beyond my two feline friends. Trust me, none of it makes sense, but all of it�s wonderful. Amazing, really. We�re like a real family, with real dysfunction, needing to stock our refrigerator with more than cheese and beer. We have a freakin� mailbox. Not like the safety deposit box variety but our own, stand alone, bitchin� mailbox ready to receive all the bills we�ve racked up acquiring a home.
Pretty intense.
So for me to want to put up a tree a couple weeks early so I actually have the time to enjoy it before I stuff it all away for another year isn�t altogether too amazing. Especially when you consider the fact that the closest thing I had to a tree in my previous living spaces was in the form of several empty cans of beer forming a pyramid in my kitchen.
Just kidding, but that is kinda funny. And at least partially true.
This is me. This is the girl who, five years ago, was more comfortable curled up like a pretzel on a barstool than I was at the notion of being called MOM. Sundays were for recovery only, not making breakfast for my family at seven in the morning and completing necessary yard work. Thirsty Thursdays and asking my tar bender for quarters for the laundry. I was obsessed about where we would watch the next football game, not about adhering to bed times or bath routines. Talk about a flip! That�s the real insanity right there.