Wednesday, December 17, 2008

One Christmas Tree is up

Hubby and I have always done a real Christmas tree. A few years ago, we realized that the cats found the secret spots beneath the tree to be the ideal place to, um, "go", so we replaced the Christmas tree in the basement with an artificial tree.

You'd think that meant we stopped having a real tree, but no. Now we have the Christmas Morning Fake Basement Tree for present opening purposes, and the Upstairs Real Tree for smelling-like-Christmas purposes. Kind of excessive, for a Scrooge like me, but, ok, I can get with the program.

Today the house was fairly clean, I have 2 weeks before my next deadline, and so everything else can kind of wait a bit. I decided to crank up the tunes and decorate at least one tree.

The Upstairs Real Tree is now decorated. It is not a great tree--and Hubby has spoiled me with years of consistently breathtaking trees, so maybe a normal person would not even complain about the tree we've got. But I look at it and I think, "This tree is weird".

It's not just the tree. It's the ornaments.

We have a wooden ornament in the shape of Texas. We have no Texas history at all. No Texan family. Hubby and I have never been to Texas. But there is a red Texas on my tree. It says "Merry Christmas, Y'all!" All my blog readers in Texas can feel included in the holiday spirit at chez Waste of Time. Ok.

We also have a china dog bone with holly on it. My mother gave it to us, for our dog. She gives us a dog ornament every year, because one day Otis will move out and have a tree of his own and this way he'll have a head start on an ornament collection. Only this dog bone looks for all the world like an erection. A big brown dog bone is fucking my tree, right by the living room window. But it has holly and ribbons on it, so it's festive, OK?

We have the collection of ornaments made by the Sons, when they were smaller, and even a few I made myself as a young girl. No problem there. A certain level of homemade tackiness is important to the holiday. But WHAT possessed Son #1's teacher to use that photo? The one where his poor little 2nd-grade self looks like he would rather stab himself in the eye than pose for the shot? Eh, she was a crappy teacher and we all hated her, anyway. Fine.

Now that I look at it, I think the tree is perfect, for this year. A little quirky, a little obnoxious, a bit of an attitude problem in spots, but all sparkly-glowy where it counts.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

6 comments:

Andrea said...

Buhaahahhaahahahahha!

Anonymous said...

Really?!?!?! Your cats do that under the tree? That's why I don't have cats or live trees.

Since I'm from Texas, that ornament can be for me. I'm looking for a crab ornament for Maryland.

Knot

Christine said...

Andrea--Knew you'd love it. Nice to know I can still drop an F bomb on my blog...

Knot--Yes, they did. We have several cat boxes in the house, but they prefer going outside, to do it around a tree. I think they thought "Wow! Christine loves us so much, she brought our peeing tree INSIDE for the holiday season!"

And you are the second Texan to claim that ornament. Guess you'll have to share...

Anonymous said...

LMAO!! I love the dog bone erection ornament! I feel ya, my tree is now fake and pathetic because my husband hates real trees, and while we have pooled our respective sentimental ornaments, some of them are pretty cheeeeeeesy. And I'm from Texas and I have no Texas ornaments. Well, my daughter has a UT ornament, does that count?

Love it.

ALF said...

Since we're traveling this year we didn't get a tree. It's SO sad. Although I am kind of pumped that I don't have to put all the ornaments away.

Christine said...

Sharla-It counts, if you say it does.

ALF-Yes, not putting ornaments away is going to sound GREAT, in about 2 days. Savor it.