Christmas Card Scenario
I now live in a house with a Christmas tree in the window. This makes me part of a Christmas card scenario, and it fills me with holiday delight.
I have collected Hallmark ornaments since before most of you were born or thought of 1973, and this is the first year since that year that I haven’t been able to get any of this year’s.
There just isn’t any money for it.
It’s all right, though, really it is, because in the closet just to the left of where I’m sitting as I type, there are over twenty Xerox paper boxes, each containing over a hundred ornaments. Between 1973 and last year, there was a lot of time to collect ornaments.
Ordinarily, we have two large trees, one in the living room and one in the dining room, each covered with ornaments, literally COVERED. Hub has a tree down in the family room that he never takes down, but I don’t consider that a real Christmas tree. It’s only a holiday tree if it appears during the holiday and no other time.
This year I put up only one tree. I opened only a couple of boxes of ornaments. I didn’t put up the lighted garlands, and I didn’t set angels and candles all over the house.
I did arrange the two Nativity scenes, because what is Christmas without the creche?
Last night, Hub and I sat in the living room looking at the one tree, and we agreed that it was beautiful, and that it was enough.
It was beautiful, and it was enough. What else is there, really?
Times are hard right now, but in our house, there is beauty and there is enough.
Please cross your fingers that it will remain so, for us, and for you, and for all of mankind.
"Allo, May I Schpick Wif Marmeesheeta pis?"
Isn’t there some kind of law that says that a creditor can’t call your house during certain hours? Wouldn’t that mean, say, don’t call before 8 a.m.? Or after 10 p.m.?
Because those people from J.C. Penney’s and Visa are not only up at the crack of dawn, they’re also burning the midnight oil. Please don’t call me in the morning, Penney’s. And while I am never in bed at ten thirty, many people are. Don’t call then, either.
In fact, don’t call at all. Do you have my records there with you? Do you not see that I always pay, that I have never not paid?
And do they really think I would give my bank codes to a total stranger who can’t even speak English very well, and who mispronounces my name? Right. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t even answer the phone with that “Caller Unknown” on the I.D. screen, but I have a lot of out-of-state friends with cell phones, and they always come up “Caller Unknown,” too.
I hate it when it’s you and not them, though. Bah.
You’ll all get your money, I promise.
Hey, at least I didn’t say, “The check is in the mail.” Because, it isn’t. Not yet. Sigh.
Hot Stuff: Steamy and Cheap and South-of-the-Border Delicious
Everybody has gone home and I sent most of the food home with them. Nobody got sick, nobody cried, nobody broke anything, everybody seemed to get along, and everybody still appeared happy by the end of the day. I did give out a few Tylenols, but that’s only to be expected.
Well, I always expect it, anyway.
I suppose they might have been smiling because they were so pie-bound their faces were frozen, but I like to think they were all smiling because they’d had a good time in my home.
My only regret is that my Tumorless Sister didn’t get a chance to wear her turkey costume because all the homemade bread had been delivered the day before. Darn. Next year, TS.
And now, it’s officially time to think about Christmas. It’s my favorite time of the year, this “before” time, the building up, the anticipation, the planning, the traditions, the decorations, the list-making, the preparations. . . I love all of these things.
I read all of these articles about “holiday stress,” or “How to get through the holidays without killing yourself or someone else,” or “That Holiday Stress/Mess/Disaster/Difficult Time” or “Holiday work, work, work, groan, strain, nightmare of a time,” etc, and I’m genuinely amazed, because there has never been a Christmas in all of my life that has caused me anything like that. Oh, sure, we’ve had hard times, no money, illness, sibling misunderstandings, etc, but the Christmas preliminaries are a time of great joy to me. I love making lists of names, and planning what to make or get for them, and finding these things in creative ways (ways that do not involve me getting up at the asscrack of dawn and going to a mall or any other such labyrinth of horror and bucking crowds of insane people and punch-drunk toddlers who were torn from their cozy cribs that their parent might save twelve bucks on Legos) ; I have other ways and they work for me!) (No, I am not a cat burglar.) I utilize the internet.
I mean, do people not understand that almost all of the Black Friday ads have been running online since Halloween? Hah, as if I would leave my bed before noon when I didn’t have to, for ANYTHING!
I mean, for a chance at a Nintendo Wii for $79.00 on Amazon, oh hellzYAH I’ll tune in and keep checking!
Stand in line at 4 a.m., three hours before the Best Buy doors even OPEN? I find even the suggestion amusing in its totally non-amusing manner. There is nothing I could ever want badly enough to make me do that.
In fact, today was the first Black Friday in my adult life wherein I left my house at all, and I didn’t leave it to go shopping. I left it because I had a hot date with a blog-friend. That’s right.
Mamacita and RightWingNation had themselves some steamy Mexican lunch today. Interpret this as you will.
