Fake – and Fabulous

I am sitting right now, seething with anxiety, because my children are both at swimming lessons with their school.  Some of you will know why I am extra anxious this time around, in addition to my usual anxiousness with the kids swimming, and signing those release forms with the school that states that the possibility of injury, dismemberment, and DEATH are all lurking around the corner as the children walk the half block to the swimming pool, not to mention all the dangers in the actual facility.  Some of you might be saying, hey, you’re a stay at home mom and you’re blogging while your children are swimming?  Maybe you should be volunteering to help!  Let me tell you, people, my volunteering at a public swimming pool would not be a good idea, given my penchant for anxiety attacks in public change rooms.  I don’t know when this started; I certainly wasn’t always such a nut, but let’s just leave it at “I don’t volunteer to help at swimming lessons.”
Anyway. 
We’ve had our Christmas tree up for two weeks now.  I live in a fairly small bungalow, and every year the putting up of the tree has required us to move every article of furniture around, including moving some to the basement, just to make space for our five-foot tree.  But this year, we purchased a new tree – a “slim build” – and it is all kinds of awesome.  Check it out!

You can see that it is still kind of wedged between the table and the armchair, but hey.  We didn’t actually have to rearrange the entire floor plan for it – more like just move the table a foot or so.  Decorating the tree is one of my favourite things to do.  The kids pretty much just spin out of control with excitement, we have to lock the dog into his crate because he goes nuts trying to figure out what is with this giant tree and why are the kids so excited, and my husband actually puts the tree together while I sing “Santa Baby” in a slutty kind of voice.  Good times.  We have an artificial tree despite the environmental horror, because three out of four people in this house have allergies and we do like to keep the mucus membranes happy.  I think it looks pretty fabulous, actually.  Here is my favourite part of the tree:

Jake put four of those candy cane ornaments on the same branch, and refused to move any of them because “They are a family!”.  Love that kid. 

This weekend we also lit our strange assortment of outdoor decorations – a moose, a hippo, two penguins, and a miniature tree.  My husband had to do some extensive feats of electrical engineering just to get everything lit, the timer to go on, etc.  It reminded me of one of my very favourite Christmas movies of all time – Christmas Vacation.  “The little lights are not twinkling.” 
All right.  I am still slightly anxious about the swimming but I’m feeling better, so thank you for listening.  I will end with another great line from that movie – a friend reminded me of it – “Holy shit.  Where’s the Tylenol?”

Comments

  1. The candy canes made me smile – my son put 6 little elf ornaments on the same branch because “they’re friends”. We have a few ornaments that are grouped together. It makes for a very strange looking tree but I’m too lazy to fix it.

    I’m sure swimming will go fine!

  2. Nothing says Merry Christmas like healthy happy mucous membranes.

    (And now you know why my husband doesn’t let me write the Xmas cards unsupervised.)

    Ours is a real tree — though I always lobby for a red tinsel tree. “Please, Husband,” I say “It’s Christmas! It’s socially sanctioned and appropriate to decorate our house as if it were inhabited by drag queens.” He never gives in.

  3. I love your tree! I love the tall slim look. What a great idea for small space. And I love your decorations.

    Looks fabulous girl! 😉

  4. It’s such a great feeling to get something that fits in your space. I’m not sure a fake tree is any more an environmental horror than cutting down a bunch of real ones, using them for a month and then turfing them. Which is still what we do, but I’m thinking we might be nearing the end of it. I let the kids decorate in enthusiastic crooked spasms of joy too.

  5. Loving the slim tree! Where’d you find it? I’m putting off putting our tree up because it means moving lots of furniture to squeeze it in and basically giving up my diner table until it comes done.

  6. Beautiful! We went to a fake tree a last year since it was costing about $120 each year. In B.C. where I am from it was much cheaper to buy a real one. I miss the scent of the tree but the fake on is just as pretty! This is the first year we didn’t have to move a bunch of stuff for the tree. It was great! 🙂

  7. Love the tree and the candy cane family! The Christmas vacation quote cracked me up. This year when we all went outside to admire the lights, my husband got us to do drum rolland he started to sing Joy to the World. *LOL* the kids had no clue what we were on about but it was hilarious! Ahhhh sweet memories.

    I love my fake tree. There’s no worries about fires and we just use it again and again and again. 🙂

  8. Them little lights aren’t twinkling Clark…hee hee I couldn’t resist.
    I imagine that I’d feel the same exact way you do. Heck I get nervous when he spends the night somewhere!
    Just sit back and enjoy the quiet with some spiked egg big while basking in the glow of your Christmas tree that is skinnier than I. Skinny betch 😉

  9. Crap that last comment was from me. I hit enter before I could add my creds..stupid fat fingers and iPods!

  10. Mrs.Mayhem says

    That is so sweet about the candy cane family. And I love the image of you singing Santa Baby in a slutty voice while your husband assembles the tree – way to help!

  11. Maple Leaf Mom: we got it at Home Depot, last year during Boxing Week! It’s so nice to have floor space.

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