Oh Christmas Gift, Oh Christmas Gift

Where is Santa when you need him?

Instead of sitting his furry red and white self down on an oversized armchair in the center of the mall, he could be making himself useful by helping harried shoppers with their Christmas lists.  Like, oh, say for example, me.

This year, we all decided to chip in and get my sister a new set of pots and pans (do we know how to celebrate or what?  Paaartay!), and since everyone was coming to our house, I volunteered to buy it and wrap it (Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! That's what younger siblings are for!)

And so, on a random Tuesday in December, I found myself at Macy's scoping out the sales without have put the necessary forethought into the whole process.

"Big sale today.  25% off," the saleswoman displayed the cookware sets as though she was a Kringle with a bagful of toys.

"Just looking,"  I resisted the lure of the shiny silver pots and pans with their beautiful, glossy black non-stick cooking surfaces.

"I'm not supposed to do this," she whispered, leaning in and pulling a handful of coupons out of her pocket while looking over her shoulder for the Burgermeister, "but I can give you an additional 20% off."

That was a good deal, but remembering that I was parked at the other end of the mall, one floor down, and this was not a small gift, I played coy.

"I'll also give you a bonus pot and 7-piece set of utensils.  Free," she coaxed.

Who was I kidding?  She had me at 'sale'.  Like a kid in Sombertown who was just offered the toy of her dreams, I plucked the coupon from her fingers and charged toward the register whipping out my credit card before the Winter Warlock could wave his magic wand and make the sale go away.

Now, while the guy in the red suit has eight big, strong reindeer pulling his rather sizable self in a sleigh, I didn't even have a misfit toy to help me schlepp my cookware to the car.  Undaunted, because, after all, this was the season of miracles, I piled bags and boxes into my arms until I resembled Max, the Grinch's dog after their midnight trip to Whoville, and started off.

Stopping every five minutes to rearrange bags and boxes as though there was a good way to carry eighty-six items through a crowded mall, I made my snail-like progress toward where my car was parked.  Where was Hermey, the elf, when you needed him?

I suppose it was because I was moving so slowly and therefore made an easy target, that the Abominable Kiosk People attacked.

"Would you like a free sample of our product?" one guy called out to me cheerily, obviously mistaking my Scrooge-like scowl as a positive sign of interest in the snake-oil he was hustling.

"Seriously?  Do you not see the eight tons of crap I am carrying?  Where would you suggest I put it?  Oh.  Wait. I have the perfect place.  Just let me wiggle my middle finger free and I'll show you."

He scuttled out of my way faster than Bob Cratchet after asking for a raise.

"Can I ask you a question?" another guy planted himself in my path, obviously believing I had goodwill toward my fellow man.

"You just did,"  I bared my teeth at him in Grinchy fashion, and tried to sidestep.

"No.  Really.  I just want to know....."  the rest of his infomercial pitch died on his lips as I narrowed my eyes and channelled Ebenezer once more.

"Seriously?  Do you really expect me to stop, put down all eighty kajillion Christmas gifts that I have strapped, tied and piled onto every part of myself and talk to you about...what is it you're selling?  add more that I can't carry and try to make it to the car without killing myself or someone else?  Really?"

His self-preservation instinct finally kicked in and he backed away as though he had just seen the open grave from the ghost of Christmas future.

Fortunately for them, the next two kioskers took one look at my less than holly jolly face and decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and melted away like Frosty on a hot July day.

Finally though, I made it to the car with the gifts, my back and most of my sanity intact.  I have, however, decided  that next year, should I be stupid enough to go in on a group gift again, I am going to have Rudolph with his nose so bright run interference for me.

Blinded By The Light

When I was young, my Aunt Margie would spend every Christmas with us, and make decorating the tree about as much fun as a root canal.

"No, no!  You can't hang Rudolph near Mickey."

Why?  Are they mortal enemies?  Can we put Dumbo next to Mickey, or do you think that'll start a stampede?

"Stop!  The blue bells go at the top, they're breakable."

Okay.  I'm fifteen, not five, and they are from K-Mart, not Swarovski.  If I promise not to ride my tricycle in the house, can we hang at least one bell under the six-foot mark?  Pleeeease, can we, huh?

"Wait.  String the lights from top to bottom, not side to side.  And start inside and work out.  You want to give the tree depth."

Um.  You are aware the tree is plastic right?  With metal "limbs"?  And since our lights are from, like, 1935, I'm pretty sure just having them in the same room constitutes a fire hazard, let alone  putting them inside the tree.  Besides, don't you think the tree kind of glows in the dark as it is?

With this scene played out Christmas after Christmas, it's no wonder I am scared for life.

So when Tim and I had our first Christmas, I convinced him to get a pre-lit tree, and then I hung glass bulbs on all the lowest branches.  Hehehe (and then I ran with scissors and went swimming 58 minutes after eating--what can I say, I was young and crazy!)

But last year, Tim talked me into getting a real tree.  He promised faithfully that he would do all the lights by himself.  I would not have to re-live my childhood nightmare.

After about two hours, our tree boasted several hundred lights, woven in, out, up, down and side to side.  It twinkled like a float in Disney's Electric Parade.  Proudly, Tim showed off his handiwork.

"You can't even see the wires, and I used ten boxes of lights," he bragged.

"Okay, you're hired,"  I told him.  "You get to do the lights every year from now on."

And then this year, disaster struck. 

After thirty-two years of dealing with a bad knee, Tim needs a replacement.  That means surgery, weeks of rehab, and lots of pain, both before and after the surgery.

But enough about Tim.  Let's talk real pain, my pain.  This year, I had to put up the lights.

I decided to do it while he was at work, so the fool wouldn't try to climb a ladder with a bad knee.  He called as I was plugging in the first strand, and in a moment of weakness (or insanity), I told him what I was about.

"I'll do it," he roared at me.  "You'll do it wrong.  Leave it till I get home tonight."

Gee, thanks Aunt Margie.  I've got to get off the phone now because I'm having a flashback and I can't hear you over the voices in my head.

So with that vote of confidence, and wishing I could start drinking at 9am on a Wednesday, I began to string the lights.

In and out, up and down, round and round I wrapped, unwrapped and rewrapped those stupid lights.  Morning turned to afternoon as I added strand after strand.  Up the ladder, down the ladder.  Stop and back up to make sure I didn't miss any spots.  My lights just had to live up to last year's display, or I would never hear the end of it.

Somewhere around 3:00, I was about halfway done and wondering how Tim was able to finish in two hours when it was taking me six, when another disaster struck.  I ran out of lights.

Dumbfounded, I stared at the tree.  How could I have used all the lights and not be done?  And what should I do now, spend another day unwinding and rewinding the lights?

Nope.  No way.  Not gonna happen.

I took a picture of the unfinished tree and sent it to Tim, then hopped in the car, drove to Target and bought the last nine boxes of lights they had.

In the meantime, Tim called, howling with laughter.  "I'm married to Clark Griswald from Christmas Vacation!"

"Do you think it's too bright?" I asked.

"Too bright?  When we fire that bad boy up, we're going to take down the whole Eastern seaboard.  Good thing we're having a generator put in.  We'll need it just to light the tree.  I think you can see it from space.  But on the bright side, Santa won't need Rudolph to find our house.  He might need sunglasses and SPF 60, but he sure can't miss it!  Hey, I'll bet your parents can see it from Florida.  Tell them to step outside and look north."

Great.  I married Shecky Sinclair.

The abuse continued when he came home, but the worst part was, the extra nine boxes were still not enough, and I had to spend most of Thursday tracking down the same kind of lights, which apparently no one but Target sells. (But I will save that for another blog)

I've made up my mind though.  Next year, we're going to a beach somewhere and decorate a palm tree.  How many lights could that take?

The Great Disaster of '98

Last week, Tim was away on business for two days which gave me the perfect opportunity to decorate for Christmas---alone.

It's better that way. Really. There is no cursing at tangled lights (well, okay, some cursing), grumbling about the Christmas music marathon, disparaging remarks about my Jingle Bell Rock Dancing Santa, arguing over who is in worse shape and should not be moving the armchair to accommodate the tree, or, most importantly, destruction of my Christmas village.

Years ago, I started painting ceramic buildings for my under-the-tree-village. Eventually, I ended up with a tiny metropolis of close to forty. Then, in the spring of '98, I found a class that taught how to make platforms from heavy duty construction styrofoam and water using wax and spray paint.

Naturally, I dragged Tim along, luring him with promises of tools and fire (what could be more manly than buying supplies at Home Depot and Radio Shack?), and other guys (which there were...even if they were eighty). Oh, and the promise that he would never, ever have to actually do any of this once the class was over.

And so, with visions of styrofoam plum trees dancing in my head, our basement became Santa's workshop. I spend hours planning the village. There was the downtown with it's shops, theater, hotel and government buildings. The two-lane highway leading from town where you could buy a used car or stop at Flo's Diner, the residential area with single-family homes ranging from craftsman style to Tudor and the nearby school, to the wooded area on the outskirts of town where the mill sat at the edge of a lake which flowed down to a camping area near town as a river.

I cut, and painted and glued. I spent hours with a soldering iron cutting miniature cobblestones and bricks and marking off parking spaces and grand staircases. I was obsessed (Tim was also obsessed---with avoiding all of this).

Finally, it was time to move it all upstairs for the grand unveiling. The tree was up, dancing Santa was happily doing his Elvis impersonation, and the house was decorated within an inch of it's life.

Tim started grabbing sections of the village (with the delicate, fragile, handmade, very breakable --can you see where this is going?--houses on top) and carrying them up the stairs (the cold, hard, sharp, steep and unforgiving stairs) against my objections.

Perhaps it was Santa's eighty-second chorus of "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" that fried his last nerve and prompted this foolish decision, or maybe he had become disoriented by the pine scented candles and sprays and oils which filled every nook and cranny of the house, but either way, it was not one of his better ideas.

Halfway up those cold, hard, sharp, steep and unforgiving stairs with the second to last section, there was a loud crack and an even louder expletive. Then, "Don't come down here."

Right. Like anything less than a herd of wild elephants could have stopped me from rushing down those stairs.

And there it was, I mean, there they were...fragments and shards of the hotel (the only hotel in town. Where were all the people supposed to stay now?), and the hospital (hopefully nobody in town would get sick or hurt over the Christmas season), as well as a few small mom and pop businesses that were gone for good (breaking the hearts of many a villager).

The disaster even claimed the lives of several inhabitants of the small, close-knit community and maimed others (one poor man had half his face blown off while feeding the birds, and another young boy lost part of one hand, making for an eternally lopsided snow-angel). It was tragic.

As I sat on the bottom step, mourning the loss of so many good people and the senseless destruction of property, a hand appeared next to me, holding a peace offering -- a glass of wine, and a dustpan. He tried being hopeful. "Look. We can glue on this guys leg." But in the end, there was little that could be done except make a trip or two out to the garbage, and rearrange the village.

And that is why we reached the very mutual decision that I, and I alone, should decorate for Christmas.