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Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Sep. 29th, 2011 10:03 pmI am sitting here, at my desk, in late September, and from the corner of my eye, I see a great many lights. My house is now fully decorated for Christmas and I am feeling rather absurd. Is it a coincidence that I never got around to opening the blinds this morning? No, I do not think so. My neighbors are going to think we're insane as it is, so I guess I was just delaying the inevitable.
M's parents arrive on Monday, and I think I've already mentioned that we're planning on doing Christmas with them now. It's become a much bigger deal than what I was first imagining--I was just thinking we'd do the gift swap thing. It grew from there, and I am actually not even sure they know we put the tree up and the decorations and stuff. It's kind of fun, and I'm really glad we're doing it, but it still feels weird. I have fall decorations that I can't put out because they won't go with my Christmas stuff. But it hit me last night, while unwrapping ornaments, that M hasn't celebrated Christmas with his family in TEN YEARS. This would be the eleventh. That's a lot of time. Except as a background in a couple of pictures, they haven't seen our tree or our decorations or any of the stuff that you'd normally see in your kid's house.
So... it pleases me that we're going to all of this trouble. After they're gone... I'm not sure it will please me to look at my Christmas tree throughout the months of October and November, but I always put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving (not on Friday! I am shopping on Friday!) so... I dunno. What would you do? Take it down on October 13 and put it back on November29, or leave it up? I am in the "leave it up" camp. M is in the "take it down" camp. My current idea is possibly to leave it up but remove all the ornaments and candy canes and Christmas stuff, until we have a plain tree with white lights, and then add fall/Halloween stuff to the tree, and move it over to the corner so it's not right in front of the window. I don't know if that would look as cute in real life as it does in my head. My biggest worry is that Evie (and us!) will be bored to death with it by the time real Christmas rolls around.
I'm making a table runner as a Christmas gift for them, and am almost done. It's got three quilt blocks and borders, a semi-pieced back (just three pieces in two patterns) and it's looking pretty cute. I just need to do the binding back, by hand, and it'll be done. I'm really looking forward to having it done so I can wrap the sucker and get it under the tree and off my to-do list. It's been a fun little project, though. M is insisting that I make another one to hang at the end of the hallway. This is a clear bribe. I've been trying to hang something at the end of the hallway for months, but everything I suggest he thinks is all wrong for the space. :)
It is so lovely and quiet right now, with only the clacking of keys and some light computer-game sounds coming from M's side of the room (after ten years of marriage, I usually don't even hear those anymore... with some notable exceptions.) It has been a trying few days. Evelyn, my normally sweet and cooperative, fairly quiet kid, has gone nutso and suddenly cannot bring herself to listen to a word anyone says, and she is talking nonstop at about twice her normal volume. I started checking the clock this afternoon, and she talked non-stop to herself for twenty-five minutes that I noticed. Singing, talking, repeating the same nonsense words over and over, whatever came to mind. In fake voices, most of it. If I tell her to lower the volume, she gets extremely huffy because Mommy doesn't want to hear her singing. Oh, and she has decided that she wants to sing opera. Preschool girls are squealy enough as they are. They do not need to practice opera. I am an introvert, people. I can only handle so much people NOISE before it gets to me. My nerves are shot.
I'm curious to know if she does any better tomorrow. She got in trouble at gymnastics today for not listening. We took last month off from gymnastics, but started back today. She's the only one in her class, which is the way it was last session too, and it's pretty awesome that she has undivided attention from two teachers. They weren't mean or anything and she totally deserved it. She wasn't upset about it at the time, but she was a bit upset about it tonight when talking about it to her daddy.
I need to get back to work. LJ is kind of dead this week. (Quantity, that is. Not quality, for those of you who have posted! Just the numbers of people writing stuff.) I have now done my part so I'd better get up and get something done before I start wasting time on pinterest again. Btw, it is my humble opinion that when you first have a pinterest account, you are all... uh, what is the big deal? It is after you start having friends following you and people that you're following that it gets interesting. If anyone wants an account, let me know and I'll send an invitation. It's sort of like crack, only more addictive. Plus, it's free, so you don't have to sell your body for your next fix.
M's parents arrive on Monday, and I think I've already mentioned that we're planning on doing Christmas with them now. It's become a much bigger deal than what I was first imagining--I was just thinking we'd do the gift swap thing. It grew from there, and I am actually not even sure they know we put the tree up and the decorations and stuff. It's kind of fun, and I'm really glad we're doing it, but it still feels weird. I have fall decorations that I can't put out because they won't go with my Christmas stuff. But it hit me last night, while unwrapping ornaments, that M hasn't celebrated Christmas with his family in TEN YEARS. This would be the eleventh. That's a lot of time. Except as a background in a couple of pictures, they haven't seen our tree or our decorations or any of the stuff that you'd normally see in your kid's house.
So... it pleases me that we're going to all of this trouble. After they're gone... I'm not sure it will please me to look at my Christmas tree throughout the months of October and November, but I always put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving (not on Friday! I am shopping on Friday!) so... I dunno. What would you do? Take it down on October 13 and put it back on November29, or leave it up? I am in the "leave it up" camp. M is in the "take it down" camp. My current idea is possibly to leave it up but remove all the ornaments and candy canes and Christmas stuff, until we have a plain tree with white lights, and then add fall/Halloween stuff to the tree, and move it over to the corner so it's not right in front of the window. I don't know if that would look as cute in real life as it does in my head. My biggest worry is that Evie (and us!) will be bored to death with it by the time real Christmas rolls around.
I'm making a table runner as a Christmas gift for them, and am almost done. It's got three quilt blocks and borders, a semi-pieced back (just three pieces in two patterns) and it's looking pretty cute. I just need to do the binding back, by hand, and it'll be done. I'm really looking forward to having it done so I can wrap the sucker and get it under the tree and off my to-do list. It's been a fun little project, though. M is insisting that I make another one to hang at the end of the hallway. This is a clear bribe. I've been trying to hang something at the end of the hallway for months, but everything I suggest he thinks is all wrong for the space. :)
It is so lovely and quiet right now, with only the clacking of keys and some light computer-game sounds coming from M's side of the room (after ten years of marriage, I usually don't even hear those anymore... with some notable exceptions.) It has been a trying few days. Evelyn, my normally sweet and cooperative, fairly quiet kid, has gone nutso and suddenly cannot bring herself to listen to a word anyone says, and she is talking nonstop at about twice her normal volume. I started checking the clock this afternoon, and she talked non-stop to herself for twenty-five minutes that I noticed. Singing, talking, repeating the same nonsense words over and over, whatever came to mind. In fake voices, most of it. If I tell her to lower the volume, she gets extremely huffy because Mommy doesn't want to hear her singing. Oh, and she has decided that she wants to sing opera. Preschool girls are squealy enough as they are. They do not need to practice opera. I am an introvert, people. I can only handle so much people NOISE before it gets to me. My nerves are shot.
I'm curious to know if she does any better tomorrow. She got in trouble at gymnastics today for not listening. We took last month off from gymnastics, but started back today. She's the only one in her class, which is the way it was last session too, and it's pretty awesome that she has undivided attention from two teachers. They weren't mean or anything and she totally deserved it. She wasn't upset about it at the time, but she was a bit upset about it tonight when talking about it to her daddy.
I need to get back to work. LJ is kind of dead this week. (Quantity, that is. Not quality, for those of you who have posted! Just the numbers of people writing stuff.) I have now done my part so I'd better get up and get something done before I start wasting time on pinterest again. Btw, it is my humble opinion that when you first have a pinterest account, you are all... uh, what is the big deal? It is after you start having friends following you and people that you're following that it gets interesting. If anyone wants an account, let me know and I'll send an invitation. It's sort of like crack, only more addictive. Plus, it's free, so you don't have to sell your body for your next fix.
