I promised you a peek at my Christmas window boxes once I decided how to dress them for the season, and here they are. I chose a simple home-style theme this year, complete with evergreen, pine cones and mason jar lights.
I Found a Head of Lettuce on My Kitchen Floor
Okay, so I admit it. December is kicking my tail. It’s not necessarily the Christmas of it all, but the shopping, wrapping, festivefying and merry-making have definitely taken priority over most other daily activities like cleaning, doing laundry and feeding my family. If it weren’t for popcorn chicken in a bag or peanut butter and bread, we would be doing take-out every night of the week.
As for cleaning, my house hasn’t had more than a spot shine here and there since Thanksgiving. In fact, the fall festiveness is still lying atop the basement bar waiting to be stuffed into the appropriate tubs until next year. Today I found a head of lettuce on my kitchen floor. Okay, so it was plastic lettuce from my son’s pint-sized shopping cart, but still it’s place is not under the dishwasher (across from the tomato I sleepily kicked while searching for a morning cup of coffee).
My husband just promised not to reveal that he’s actually doing most of the laundry, and as much as I want to protest I just can’t, especially when he wanders in looking for clean socks or underwear to go to work in the mornings. Gee, he can be so needy. . . But don’t worry, there is usually a forgotten load of whites left in the dryer because I had some sort of gift wrapping going on in another part of the house. Aw, if it all gets too wrinkled, I’ll just throw in a wet towel and push it through another dry cycle — now there’s a good use of the world’s resources. (Who am I kidding. . . I’m prone to do just that on any given day of the year.)
Yes, I distinctly remember mocking the month and explaining that I was planning not to panic, but Plan B is now in place and anything goes. If we have to feast on the Bell four nights a week and eat pot pies the other, I’ll make it to Christmas with merry music blaring, a glazed smile on my face and my undies turned inside out.
O’ Christmas Tree
We have a big, beautiful Christmas tree we decided to abandon in the basement this year. It’s not that we don’t love it, but the mammoth thing is nine feet tall and six feet wide and feels like the love child of a hippo and porcupine when you’re dragging it up a narrow flight of stairs. So instead of hauling and hoisting the big girl this year, we decided to go with a bare-bones six footer I bought really cheap a few years ago. I thought it was a good idea until my husband set it up in the living room — the poor thing just looked so sad, and short.
I thought and thought of ideas to add a few feet to the height of the tree and a bit of charm without dipping into my pocketbook. Suddenly it occurred to me that we had a large urn holding some dying pansies out front and it might just be the ticket. So my husband and I dumped out a bit of dirt, pulled off the tree stand and stabbed in the tree . I wedged some rocks and pieces of wood in place to secure the trunk and surprisingly enough it turned out to be quite steady. . . and cute. It also added about two feet to the overall height, and even withstood the decorating process, which included the help of a certain three-year-old boy.
