December 19, 2012

• Holiday Ramblings

  There is a wicker basket in our family room that is usually located elsewhere in the house. It’s move is part of the domino effect that happens when you try to insert an 8 foot Christmas tree into the normal living space. You know how it goes.

  I put the basket in a nook between the fireplace and bookshelves, where it would blend right in and hardly be noticed. Except that every 10 minutes or so, it lights up like a Christmas tree. For real.

  Packed away with the Christmas decorations are the kid holiday adornments – things like beads from New Years Eve, Santa hats, jingle bell necklaces, and reindeer antlers. They usually end up strewn around the house for the entire season, so I thought that basket would be a perfect place to stash them. Lo and behold, the kids actually listened to me and put their swag back in there after the holiday pep rally last week.

  But it seems that the light up reindeer antlers that flash are still feeling peppy. The switch won’t turn them off, and neither will every single member of the family venturing into the box and jiggling them around. (I know that from experience.)

  So in case the Santa countdown ornament isn’t enough to remind me of the impending holiday, the flashing wicker basket of pep will keep me on my elfin toes, I guess.

  Was that a random story? Yes, I do believe it was.

  Oh, and there they go again. Seriously! Once when I picked up the laptop and once when I’m down here on the 7th paragraph. Who’s got spirit, how ’bout you? Basket’s got spirit, yes you DOOOOO!

  I may be losing it a little bit.

  The Mr. had a tacky holiday sweater contest at work. The man is slightly motivated by competition , so he took it kind of seriously. He enlisted the help of our design savvy daughter and her new sewing machine, and made a pretty hilariously tacky sweater for the occasion. He won the prize for “best homemade” tacky sweater. Aren’t you jealous?

  I dropped off a big load of stuff at Goodwill today. That was a good feeling — and a necessity if we’re going to incorporate all the new gifts that are arriving on the doorstep daily. GULP.

  The cards are all out, the neighborhood gifts have been made and distributed, the teacher gifts are almost all handed out, the presents are all bought, and some of the holiday meal(s) grocery shopping is done. That seems like good progress, I think.

  Next up, wrapping. I hate wrapping and I’m so bad at it that it looks like I do it with my toes. Thankfully, the Mr. is just as good at wrapping as he is at making handmade tacky garments. And so is his daughter. SCORE! Our son, on the other hand, seems to have inherited my lack of wrapping talent and subsequent addiction to Scotch tape as a remedy. Poor kid.

  I just discovered the latest package on the porch – it’s for our son from his aunt and uncle. It’s a very long, narrow box and contains something I deem to be unwrappable. I’m sure the Mr. could whip up some sort of fantastical packaging with flashing lights that would be just perfect……but he’s out of town and we need to get this wrapping show on the road. So I just taped the box shut again (Scotch tape RULZ!!!) and tied some green curling ribbon around it. SHAZAM! (Curling ribbon is about the only thing I can use properly. Except that every single time I put it back down on the table the end seems to get lost in the rest of the ribbon spool.)

  There goes the basket again…….

   

  • 2:28 pm
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