Friday, December 5, 2008

Feel the Christmas Cheer, Dammit

Okay, I finally managed to make myself do some cleaning yesterday. Then I promptly negated all my good work by cutting up balsam fir branches in the house and strewing boxes of half-emptied decorations all over.

We go heavy on the candlesticks and evergreen boughs for decorating here at Blackrock. And yes, we use real evergreen boughs that I cut from a tree out back. They look MUCH better than the fake stuff, and smell better, too, but I will not lie--they are a pain in the ass. Besides the whole cutting of them, there's the sap to contend with (and of course you all remember my clever Heloise-style hint about removing sap from your clothes that I posted six months ago--RIGHT?), and then the branches slowly dry out and shed needles, leading to a solid inch of dead needles all over the furniture and floor when I attempt to remove the decorations in January. Good times.

My favoritest (yeah, that's what I said) decorations in the whole house, however, are these Santa hats that I bought at the grocery store one year. One says "Merry Christmas," and one says "Bah Humbug." To cover all the bases, you understand.


Today, I'm going with the one on the right.

What never fails to amuse me about these hats is their position on top of these priceless antique carved wooden heads from South America. You can't see it in the photo, but The Heads are kind of tribal looking, and have very stern expressions. And Santa hats. Hee.

Not so amusing, however, are the boxes still sitting on the floor in the living room that must be dealt with before the entire county descends upon our house tomorrow for the party. Having a deadline for Christmas decorating is kind of a buzzkill.

Do you have any holiday decorations up yet? Or do you hate the whole thing and wish to move to a Muslim country for the entire holiday season?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm putting off the whole decorating thing as long as I can. That's easy being Catholic and all. Got to get one of those Bah Humbug hats for your dad.

Anonymous said...

This weekend is the orgy of decorating and cookie baking. Woot! And then I suppose I should start thinking about gifts...

Anonymous said...

We are usually crazy for Christmas but I feel like a scrooge this year, don't know what that is all about. We have a tree upstairs that the kids decorated and the the baby undecorated but so far that is it...no misletoe, no garland, no frosty, not santa, nadda, nothing, zilch...

I think I need one of your hats..

Sweet Bird said...

Ahh the glory of spending Christmas with my husbands family every year...we're never at home so I never have to decorate. I'd like to some year, but seeing as howe we rarely ever get to see his family outside of the holidays I would never want to pass on it. My MiL def goes nuts on the decor though, last year there were 4 full size trees.

Impressive.

Unknown said...

I'm usually all in for Christmas.. but I'm kinda a Scrooge this year! Maybe I need a Bah Humbug hat! I'll bet someone could make a fortune selling those!LOL Good luck with the party!
Jean

Anonymous said...

I broke tradition this year and put mine up the day after Thanksgiving. I usually wait until well into December when I'm stressed and tempted to skip the whole thing. Not sure what got into me. Oh wait. My mom's living with me now and anything to get my mind off the fact my mother is living with me now. (Just kidding, mom!)

krysta said...

i really don't like christmas. i try to put off decorating until the absolute last minute or until the kids nag me to death. since they are old enough now i let them do all the decorating all my husband and i do is set up the tree.

this is what happens when you work retail at target for years and years!