Putting up a tree
Its Thanksgiving weekend, and 2020 has been such a horrible year, I combined the two activities I do for Christmas, and put both outdoor and indoor decorations up in 3 days, just to make my wife happy. She’s a little girl and loves all the lights and ornaments and everything that makes it feel Christmas. She’s not alone in that.
We economized on outside lights and got the ones that run on the sun. This means not only do they NOT need a wall plug, but they also turn themselves on and off automatically. Makes it convenient. We already have solar lights in the yard shining at the house through the night all year long. She smiled when she saw what was done.
The process of getting indoor decorated is a bit more complicated. I have to vacuum the floor BEFORE I bring in the tree. Then move the stuff standing where the tree will be and get that ready. For fun, I brought in all the ornament and light boxes and stacked them up inside a day or two early, OHHH, the anticipation! Our tree lives in a box that sits in a box in a closet that accesses outside. So, get the stuff out of the way, and bring in the tree box. It has a stand with legs that collapse flat for storage, so I have to tie and tape a piece of plastic pipe between two legs, so they don’t come together. With 5 cats in the house, you do EVERYthing you can to keep It standing until after Christmas, and that takes some doing!
One year, before I met my wife, they knocked down the tree in her condo. She chased them all over all the time, so they got the message-DON’T mess with Mommy’s tree! Since we married and moved into a house, they’ve only knocked it down once. It had a skirt around the legs to hide the legs. She thinks they got tangled in that, so no more skirt.
But today it came out and had the usual light lines jumbled up and hard to tell how to hook them all up. The tree came with white lights some years ago, so some lines don’t work. I told her I put it up now just to see what was going to work, and what wasn’t. As it turned out, only one or two didn’t, so happy wife. Not having to buy more lights-happy me! The way it usually works is I do the lights, and she does the ornaments. Keeps us out of each other’s way, until she’s done everything she can reach from the ground. Then she’s asking me for help to hang the ones up high. Then it becomes OUR tree!
I’ve been seeing Christmas decorations go up this weekend before. Actually I split the weekends, one outdoor, the next indoor. 2020 was rough, so both NOW! Helps in having a good spirit for the holidays. People say “Merry Christmas” is a particular mindset, and to be inclusive of all the belief systems that celebrate something in December, say “Happy Holidays”. I’m okay either way. That’s not something to make anything a big deal about.
Covid did so much to dampen or destroy the human spirit, with all the isolation. Fall football helped, until my team lost 5 games straight. Covid pushed now 2 games back, so we’ll finish the season maybe in February, the way the NFL does. But some games played as scheduled. The Iron Bowl is NOT a surprise, Bama 42, Auburn 6. But Vandy got hard up for a kicker and put a lady out there. Didn’t help. Missouri still had em for lunch, 41–0.
But back to Christmas decoration. Its important, especially this year, to do EVERYthing to pick up the spirit, so yes, DO CHRISTMAS!
