Hilarious #treefail and TG bummer

As I waited at a red light this morning, I received this photo via text (message: check to make sure tree is securely in stand before decorating) from one of my college besties:

After composing myself  -hysterical laughter had overtaken me- I called her to find that they'd bought their tree last Friday. She put it in the stand, and her husband, K, said, "that tree is leaning." In typical E fashion (which I love), her feminist feathers ruffled, she retorted that some trees just don't have straight trunks and this one was surely fine. K nodded (probably saying to himself, "that tree is not secure.") and the whole family proceeded to decorate gleefully.

The next morning, K and their son left for some sort of athletic practice (they are very athletic, and really, I can't keep up because we are not), and E and her daughter were upstairs getting dressed. They heard a crash and said it sounded rather like a Christmas tree had just toppled over. Indeed it had.

All this came after E had eaten a Chipotle burrito on Wednesday night and shortly thereafter started to feel ill. As she was taking the kids to K's wrestling tournament (he coaches), she had to pull over, quickly threw her wallet and makeup bag out of her purse and puked into it several times. I thought it was really something that she managed to clear out the important stuff before booting over the rest. A new black purse is now on her Christmas list.

"Why did you not just puke onto the road, E?"

"Well, we were in a nice neighborhood and I didn't think anyone wanted to wake up on Thanksgiving morning to find puke on their sidewalk."

Thoughtful, and, again, impressive thinking in the midst of "it's coming!" vomit.

Not only did she recover but managed to get to the tournament and sell concessions (unfortunately she did not feel quite up to much eating on Thanksgiving). K was inspired and told his team that the next time they considered whining about being tired or whatever, they better put a plug in that, think about his wife who puked in her own purse and still sold concessions at their match. Hah! What a pair.

Such a Vacation vacation, yes?

We got our tree! Christmastime! Dinner.

So, before Thanksgiving I made myself laugh (hopefully at least one other, too) by stating that Turkey Day was nothing more than a speed bump on the road to Christmas. In large part I believe that to be true although I fully admit to enjoying TG this year much more than I have in the past. Mercifully, the many and various pies I made are almost all gone! Both T and I hauled it to the gym today to work off several pieces of pecan-oatmeal and apple. In any case, Thanksgiving -holiday or speed bump- has passed, and...."Christmas, Christmastime is here, time for joy and time for cheer."  Though I am not sure what my ardor for Christmas and Valentine's Day says about me in terms of many people considering both of them to be tributes to materialism foisted upon us by greeting card companies and their ilk, I love them both SO much. Frankly, even if this means I do like hearts and pink and love and carols and garlands and wreath and shiny things more than the average bear, I accept and love that about myself. We all have our peccadillos, you know?

Long story short, we bought and erected our Christmas tree this afternoon. There is little that makes me feel more festive than seeing cars with Christmas trees lashed to their roofs, so I was thrilled to have my car used as the sleigh this afternoon. Upon returning home and watching T set the tree in the stand, the kids decided that their first task would be to carefully snip away the netted binding and while doing so said they were going to make a film about how to best cut the tree harness away. I am usually very supportive of their random ideas, but before I could stop myself, I said, "y'all, that sounds incredibly dull. How on earth could you make a movie about cutting string?" They replied, "it'll be a short video on YouTube." Touché. But I maintain that this is not a niche that needs to be filled in the old how-to department.

Even though Tom and Oliver picked out a runty sub-6-footer when I went inside to pay, I will bedeck it until its boughs groan with shimmery baubles. The boys and I started decorating before dinner, but the real fun will come tomorrow when they are at school, T is at work, and I can crank the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas CD up to full blast and go to town with my ornaments all by myself. Then I'll do the mantle, arranging the freshly trimmed branches just so, placing tiny lights and a beloved iron reindeer in the "forest", and hanging the stockings. I'll wrap a garland through the hand rail out front and get out festive hand towels and funny decorations for the boys' rooms that they love meeting anew each year.

I'll have to make butter cookies at some point, too, rolling the dough out time and again as seasonal cookie cutters pressed carefully into the thin dough leave behind scraps too good to waste. And then there's the wrapping to do! I love to wrap presents, love to give them. I love the kids' letters to Santa and I love seeing the magical looks on their faces when they open their gifts and with awe and wonder and thrill think that he received their sweet notes and answered them perfectly. It is such a joy, and I feel so very grateful that we can give our children Christmases like we can.

In other news, I also made a nice dinner tonight. A clean, sugar-free meal that will help the excesses of TG start to bid us adieu: crispy kale, garam masala cauliflower mash and oven-roasted King salmon. And now to bed with a good book and some tea.

Meatballs and a question

At what age do you get to stop managing -by which I mean literally bathing, helping dress, overseeing toothbrushing, reading stories, tucking in- bedtime for your kids? Because I am most definitely at the point of being largely uninterested in the process. In aggregate, I've done about 4,380 nights of this over the past years, and while I love, love to snuggle and kiss my boys, I am sick, sick of some of the other biz. In all honesty, when does this part of raising kiddos become more their responsibility than yours? Today was like a best-case marathon: it's not too cold, not too hot; you aren't sidelined by muscle spasms or chafing; your pace is strong; no one around you is a dick. Yet at the end, you are wiped out. Fried. Spent. Beat. Blur story short, we saw family, took several walks and bike rides, I made one million meatballs, we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and finally, praise the goddess of tired mamas, the boys are in bed as of 2 seconds back.

Oliver had a ginormous meltdown about his bath. "I want to have a HAND BATH!! A HAND BATH!! Not a tub bath!"

What, pray tell, is a hand bath?

Apparently, it is a bath given via washcloth whilst standing outside of the tub on a mat. I told him he best figure out how to do it by himself or ask Dad.

Jack had a lunatic fit about the fact that I asked him, after waiting patiently for five minutes, if he was ready to walk to CVS. Ol and I decided to make the short trip without pouting J.

At this point, by which I mean right now, I am enjoying a generous second glass of wine, watching T cook the fresh pasta (aah, fresh linguine!), and eagerly anticipating the best meatballs in.the.world.

PS- Was anyone else completely overwhelmed by the Black Friday sale promotion going on today?  Aah. All the ads felt like The Blob was approaching...