Our tree is not real. You may wonder why someone who puts up a full Nativity and lights their porch and puts up Nativities around the house would go for the fake tree.
Well let me tell you about Christmas 1997:
#3 had just been born and we had an ice storm here in the Deep South. It was cold on Christmas Eve, so we all slept in our clothes in the Living Room in front of the fire place on a mattress. Where we’d slept for three days. Our lights had been out for days and all our food was on the back deck-it was icy and we had no electricity. We got up Christmas morning and it was beautiful. Warm. 70 degrees warm. Turkey was ruined, I had no way of cooking it. That year #1 got a Playstation. I got a Laptop. No electricity to use them. He declared it “THE WORSE CHRISTMAS EVER.” And it was. We hadn’t bathed in days, it was cold, nothing in our small town was open to eat at. Our food was ruined on the back deck.
Around 9:30 Hubby had me take down the live tree, because it was no longer alive. It was a fire hazard. He then proceeded to drag it across my living room and home office to the back yard (across white-beige carpet). Then he looked at me funny and said, “Well aren’t you going to vacuum that up.” Now I am a firm believer in the Biblical principal of submission. I am also a firm believer in electricity. We had none-a fine point Mr. Wise Guy had forgotten. So I, in my haven’t had a shower in days, the kids are miserable, we have no food, this is the worse Christmas ever voice said, “No Mr. Wise Guy, I am not going to vacuum that up, I like the way it looks on my living room floor. In fact, I think I will leave it there for the baby to play in for a few days.” It was not our finest hour as husband and wife.
With that, we loaded up all three kids (ages 6, 5 and 3 months) and all their electronic toys and went to a hotel. We took hot baths, ate Christmas dinner out of a vending machine and it was “The Best Christmas Ever” according to #2. The hotel was short staffed, so I helped them fold towels and they bought us and unlimited supply.
Two days later, the electric company realized that we didn’t have electricity. Oh did I mention the people behind us did? While we sat in the cold for two days, they ran Christmas lights. Calls to the electric company went to an answering machine because it was Christmas. We knew crews were working around the clock in the cold and ice, but it didn’t help that we were cold and our neighbors had Christmas lights on. We still joke about the Christmas we nearly killed our neighbors over Christmas lights. LOL
It took the carpet cleaning guys hours to get the tree sap out of that carpet and in certain light, you could still see the stain. After that, we bought a fake tree. I’d always felt like the colds the kids got each Christmas were due to allergies to the tree and sure enough that first fake tree Christmas none of them got sick. Seems they were allergic to the Christmas trees we were bringing into the house.
I love my fake tree. It’s nice and full, can be put up nice and early and hasn’t yet ate one of my ornaments like the old real trees were prone to doing. And not once have we had live critters come out of the fake tree. That my dears is a story for another blog. SHUDDER…
I can beat the garbage can.
Three years ago I got an ironing board cover for Valentines Day………
to be fair to him, for several weeks everytime I did the ironing I came out with the line ” I must get a new cover next time we go shopping” and promptly forget when we out.
He did follow it up immediately with some CD’s and flowers but for a few seconds I could have crowned him. Apparently, he had been in the shop a couple of days before and remembered, so thought it would be funny to see my face when I opened it, as he knows I hate ironing.
Well, I don’t know. You see I have two children back to back, 16 months apart, that followed back to back miscarriages, so I was pregnant and nursing for three solid Christmases. So the Christmas I got the double stroller, well let’s just say it was not his finest hour. The next year the washer died and he jokingly (I think) said he’d get me a new one for Christmas. Sybil’s head spun 4 times before she (I mean, I) explained to him that a washing machine belonged to the ENTIRE family, not just the mother. Needless to say the way our appliances have been dropping dead lately even the kids were beginning to wonder if they weren’t going to get appliances for Christmas this year. We’ve lost a washer, fridge, mixer and a portable DVD player in the last few weeks.