Word of the Day

Hetty - A combination of hot and sweaty.

I feel like I'm living a life-version of one of those Advent Calendars except I don't get any of the tiny little chocolates. Instead, each day I add a little bit more to my Christmas decorations. I put out my Twelve Days of Christmas figurines today. I'm glad I bought those candles because the tapers that I thought I might have had in the box in my closet...weren't. I did have a couple of snowman candles and a couple of nutcracker candles but those don't qualify as the tapers that I needed for my dining room table.

We still need to put up the tree. Tomorrow? HTP has to fix the Christmas tree stand. Tomorrow? We'll get to it. Heck! My memory may be a bit foggy but serious tree decorating when I was young was done a lot closer to Christmas. Like...the night before? We always had a real tree though. You really don't want to rush putting up a real tree. They tend to dry out and then you could risk a house fire. Especially with the lights that we used to use. No...we never used real candles to light our tree. But those lights were REALLY HOT! I know. I burned the heck out of my hands when I was younger because I just couldn't resist touching those pretty lights. I'm amazed that we never actually burned down the house with those lights.

And then...we actually anchored that sucker to the radiator? I mean, there's never a perfect tree but..... I love my Mom. She always shopped for that perfect tree. I remember hours standing out in one of those tree lots in the cold snow, freezing my toes off while Mom picked out that "perfect" tree. It had to meet certain criteria. It had to fit the budget. Looking nice was important but the budget trumped all. So...sometimes that perfect Charlie Brown tree was the result. Needless to say, said tree didn't always have a perfect center of gravity or balance. Sometimes you just had add some stability lines.

There were specific rules when it came to adding tinsel to the tree. We always re-used our tinsel. My Mom had such patience! I mean...there is no way that I would have the patience to pick every last piece of tinsel from the clinging needles of an old, dried-out Christmas tree. She used to iron the old ribbons and the paper too. Such were the times we lived in. Maybe we should all go back and think about such things. Some of those things made a great deal of sense. My Mom was one of the first recyclers! Conservation! We have moved into such a disposable way of life. On the otherhand, if I had to pick all that tinsel out of the tree come January, I'd probably switch to garland. Come to think of it...that's what I did! Mom (if you're reading this) I still save the old gift tags and use the old bows. I don't use ribbons and I can't get HTP or the kids to show any sort of patience when it comes to opening gifts so the paper is a total loss. I reuse the gift bags and boxes though so I'm not totally lost to this modern life of consumerism. I retained some of my roots. But I use an artificial tree. I refuse to pay $20 or more for a once-living Christmas tree that will drop its needles on my carpet, needles that will make an appearance months (years) later no matter how often you vacuum. I figure that my poor little artificial tree paid for itself in 1998. Right now? It's free...except HTP has to fix the stand.

Human Imponderable of the Day

Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?