In Search of Christmas Spirit - Day 7

Day 7:  Interior Illumination

Today we were supposed to decorate our Christmas tree, which for some reason the kids have named "Hector."  All three kids are learning Spanish so when they say "Hector," they roll their R's beautifully and as a former French student who was never able to master the R-roll, I'm wracked with jealousy.  Not sure why we couldn't have named the tree Ted.

Anyway, the plan was to decorate the tree this afternoon, but my daughter has "hell week" -- the week leading up to a play ("Cyrano de BurgerShack," you read that right, "BurgerShack") during which, with no let up of homework, she goes directly to the theater from school every day and we don't see her until 10:30 pm.  When she left the house at 6:45 this morning, she was very clear that we were not to decorate the tree without her.  Tricky.

But the dark tree looks a little sad, so I decided to compromise by putting on only the Christmas lights.  And given the weather forecast, I'm betting that tomorrow will be a snow day -- otherwise the tree will probably remain ornament-free until Sunday night.

After my last illuminating experience, I decided to warm up for lighting the tree with something simple:  lights and garland around the inside of our front door.  And lo and behold, the lights all lit on the first try, the nails were still in the trim from last year (not sure what that says about my housekeeping), and I finished the job in five minutes.

"Perfect!" I thought, and since it was going so well, I decided to wrap the banisters with lights and garland.  The upstairs railing went off without a hitch so I moved on to the downstairs railing.  I wound the garland and lights through the balusters and around the railing, plugged in the string of lights and my heart sank.  Another half lit string of lights -- just like outside.  Argh.

I debated starting over with another string of lights (if I could find one) and came close to giving up, but I still had the tree to do and the inside of our house is much warmer than the outside, so I forged on.  First I tried replacing the fuses.  No luck.  Big surprise.  My temper began to flare, but I took a deep breath and started the painful process of checking each bulb.  After testing 34 bulbs to the accompaniment of a lot of internal grumbling and a few choice words that I will not repeat here, I replaced the 35th bulb and. . .

H A L L E L U J A H ! ! !

It worked!

"Yes!" I exclaimed and I jumped up and started to do a happy dance and the dog came running and the boys were laughing (at me, as it turns out -- I guess they weren't too impressed with my moves) and for a moment my Christmas spirit soared!

Until I realized I still had to do the tree.

But no worries.  The tree lights worked and I experienced only minimal distress as I worked my way around our diminutive, but surprisingly full Hector.  ("Little full, lotta sap.")  And as I sit here at the hockey rink at 9:45 pm writing this post and pulling pine, excuse me, "Fraser Fir" needles out of my hair, I'm feeling a deep sense of, if not accomplishment, then definitely relief.

Fingers crossed for a snow day!

The front door and Casey.

The upstairs landing.

Hector.  I put the lights on evenly, but Hector
 has some very, very full spots that block the light.

In Search of Christmas Spirit - Day 6

Day 6:  O Christmas Tree

As I drove home at 6:45 tonight having been out since 7:30 this morning, I was beginning to despair that I could come up with something Christmassy to do today.

I'd hoped that we'd be able to get our Christmas tree yesterday and that I'd be decorating it tonight, but even if the sketchy roads hadn't doubled our hockey drive time, the poor trees would have been full of snow and wet with rain.  To top it off, with my husband traveling for work this week, I knew that our next opportunity to get a tree would be the following weekend -- only 10 days before Christmas -- not exactly in keeping with my plan to increase my Christmas spirit.  Sigh.

But when I pulled into the driveway, there in the glow of the garage Christmas lights (see Day 4:  Exterior Illumination), I could just make out the shape of a Christmas tree in the back of my husband's truck.

With my daughter and I otherwise engaged, my husband and two boys had taken it upon themselves to venture out into the dark and cold (17° to be exact) to pick out a tree.

"It's a  Fraser Fir!" my husband exclaimed when I walked in the door.

And now that Fraser Fir is standing in the corner of our family room, and as it melts, its branches are gradually opening up and the room smells like Christmas.

It may not be the tallest tree and it does have one slightly wonky branch, but it's beautifully full, tomorrow it will be ready to decorate, and hey, at least the star will fit on top without any trouble!

In Search of Christmas Spirit - Day 5

Day 5:  Christmas "Spirit"



After a very early start, two hockey games, and endless driving on icy/snowy/sleety roads, this seemed like the perfect way to celebrate the season.


My Christmas "spirit"... spiced rum.



Cheers!

In Search of Christmas Spirit - Day 4

Day 4:  Exterior Illumination

Our neighbors have had their Christmas lights out for weeks.  A cheery snowman, light wrapped shrubs, the full monty.  And while I enjoy the juxtaposition of fall leaf garland and frost bitten mums against the snowy ground at our house (honestly, if we hadn't had company for Thanksgiving, the sagging jack-o-lanterns would probably still be on the step too), today I decided to tackle exterior illumination.

Normally I would wait for my husband to help (read:  do) this job, but we have a very busy weekend ahead of us:  three hockey games, day long drama rehearsals, a party -- you get the idea.  So when my boys got home from school this afternoon, I announced that it was time to decorate the outside of the house.  My announcement, sadly, was met with a resounding silence.  Not to be deterred, I let my boys march off to their X-Box while I headed out into the cold.

2 1/2 hours later I'm sitting at the computer, job half done, drowning my sorrows in a glass of wine.

My undertaking seemed to go pretty well at first.  I hauled the bin of Christmas lights and faux pine garland up from the basement, dragged the extension ladder out from under the deck and got started.  After struggling with the weight of the ladder like a cartoon character, I managed to lean it up against the garage gutters and climbed up.  But then I couldn't stop laughing because everything reminded me of Clark Griswold decorating his house in Christmas Vacation -- right down to the sound of the ladder.  So silly and so embarrassing to be laughing out loud when you are alone.  Anywho...

After a slow start, I worked my way down the length of the garage, managing to stay on the ladder despite the giggling.  At some point my daughter arrived home and, unlike my boys, she was more than happy to spot me at the slippery corner of the garage.  Girl power!

Then it was on to the doors.  This portion of the exterior illumination required a step ladder, hammer, and nails.  But I managed to decorate the breezeway in record time -- dead mums out, wreath in.  Done.

I moved on to the front door feeling a little cocky, never a good idea, and was stopped in my tracks by a strand of lights that was only half lit.  ARGH!  What is it about Christmas lights!?  Why can they not work from year to year!?  I spent 15 minutes checking all the bulbs (channeling Rusty, another Christmas Vacation reference if you're unclear), I spent another 15 minutes replacing both impossibly tiny fuses (has anyone ever, in the history of the world, fixed a strand of lights by replacing the fuse), I howled at the moon (or at least to where the moon should be, it's cloudy tonight), but no, half of the lights, so beautifully entwined with the lovely pine garland, refused to light.

My resolve wavered, but I decided to move on to the lamp post.  I trudged back down to the basement in search of the lights/garland that we usually wrap around the lamp post, but after another 15 futile minutes of searching, I conceded defeat.  "I think we lost a box of Christmas decorations," I told my youngest who had finally come up for air from playing FIFA 15 and was running by stick-handling a tennis ball.  His helpful response:  "Maybe it's not lost; maybe you just can't find it."

So that's it.  Clearly the exterior illumination project will not be completed in full tonight.  But somehow, now that I've reached the bottom of my glass of wine, I'm feeling fine about it.  Here's a picture of the decorated garage.  Christmas spirit?  not so much...

In Search of Christmas Spirit - Day 3

Day 3:

Buoyed up by an extra cup of coffee and inspired by the candles on the mini quilt I posted about yesterday, this afternoon I decided to put out our Christmas window candles.

Let me pause here for a moment to tell you about the extra cup of coffee.  Normally I drink a single cup of tea in the morning.  I love coffee, but as my family can attest, when I drink too much caffeine it's a problem.  I tend to get a little cranky and a lot paranoid.  So tea it is.  But occasionally, when there's a bit of coffee left in the pot and I'm feeling a little reckless, I'll pour myself a cup.

This morning was one of those mornings.  And when the coffee kicked in, I was a designing machine!  I couldn't sew a stitch because my hands were shaking so much, but the ideas, energy and optimism came fast and furious.  I can't do it every day -- I think eventually I'd develop a tolerance for the caffeine and the positive effects would wear off -- but it's an excellent ride every once in a while.

So anyway, the candles.  (Apparently lack of focus is another side effect of the coffee.)  I love the look of Christmas candles in the window -- so welcoming when you are coming home late, say after yet another hockey practice.  But the candles present a couple of major drawbacks.

First, our candles are light and tend to fall off the window sills from the weight of their cords.  Tired of replacing bulbs, I've tried using adhesive putty to hold the candle bases to the sills with minimal success.  I thought about duct tape, but it doesn't exactly say "Christmas."  So this year I had the brilliant idea (coffee, coffee, I love coffee!) of hot gluing the candles to the window sills.  I did a spot test by putting glue on my window sill and pulling it off after 30 minutes (30 minutes, 30 days, what's the difference) to see if it also removed the paint.  Didn't!  Genius!  So I committed and glued all of the candles to the window sills.

Which brings me to drawback #2.  Turning the candles on and off.  In our last house, we tried battery operated candles, but found them too dim.  So when we moved into this house we splurged on electric candles with in-line cord switches.  Lovely.  But two sides of our house are visible from the road, and those two sides of the house have 10 windows that need candles, and that means every day we have to turn on and turn off 10 candles.  My daughter is pretty great about turning the candles on when she gets home from school.  It's turning them off that is the problem.  The kids are in bed by then, so my husband and I have been crawling around on the floor and reaching behind furniture to turn off the 10 candles every night in December for 5 years.  Once in a while I pretend to be tired and sneak upstairs to read, leaving my husband to, as he calls it, "shut down the nuclear reactor." He gets wise to me pretty quickly.


But last year my mother-in-law came for a visit during the month of December.  And when it was time to shut down the nuclear reactor, Joan simply walked up to one of the window candles and turned the bulb in its socket just enough to turn it off.  My husband and I looked at each other in shock.  Ridiculously easy and yet it hadn't occurred to either of us in 5 years.  Needless to say, that moment was life changing.

So this year, the candles are glued down tight and thanks to Joan, the nightly shutdown should be a snap.  Christmas spirit?  Getting there.  And don't they look pretty...

In Search of Christmas Spirit - Day 2

Day 2:


This morning we woke up to another couple of inches of snow and a two hour delayed school start.  Climbing back into bed at 5:30 for another hour of sleep has definitely boosted my spirits.


And, fresh as a daisy after our relaxed morning, I decided that today was the day to pull out the Christmas quilts.










The first to go up was my Home for the Holidays wall hanging.

Followed by my Christmas in the Cabin table runner.

The pillow I made with leftover Christmas in the Cabin trees went in my favorite chair.

And my O Holy Night wall hanging, an oldie but a goodie, went on its hook in the stairway.

And finally, the latest addition to my Christmas collection, this sweet little framed quilt.  I wish I could say it was my design, but alas it's a Bareroots "little stitchies" pattern, #155 Christmas Stitchery to be exact.  I made it during the height of my pre-Thanksgiving Christmas spirit and it's sitting on my kitchen window sill mocking me -- a reminder of Christmas spirit past.  Hmm, it is really cute though.  Could it be a portent of Christmas spirit yet to come...

In Search of Christmas Spirit

I've finally emerged from my Thanksgiving leftovers induced coma (mmm... pumpkin pie) only to discover that it's December 2nd, Christmas is 23 days away, and I'm seriously lacking in Christmas spirit.  My daughter brought this to my attention when she asked me what percentage of Christmas spirit I had.  "Oh, I don't know, 3%," I told her.  She was shocked and informed me that during the course of the year she was always at least at 8%.  Ok, so the math might be inaccurate, but the point is, my Christmas spirit is low and after giving it some thought, I think I know why.

A few weeks ago, I discovered that the Hallmark Channel shows Christmas movies 24/7 and I'm not ashamed to admit (ok, I'm a little ashamed) that I've been partaking.  And then a couple of weeks ago I accidentally happened upon the Sirius Holiday Traditions channel in the car while looking for something to listen to other than the NHL Network that my boys favor.  Listening to holiday music in the car reminded me that I could listen to a Pandora Christmas music station while working at home.  Then I saw eggnog in the grocery store a few days before Thanksgiving and couldn't resist the pull of a rum and eggnog (I don't think that means I have a problem).  And then, to top it all off, we got a foot of snow in a pre-Thanksgiving snow storm.

With schmaltzy movies and Christmas music and eggnog and snow barraging my system (really, I don't drink that much eggnog), you'd think I would be full of Christmas spirit.

But no, I'm afraid I'm a peak-too-sooner.

I think Thanksgiving was my Christmas.  I peaked at Thanksgiving and now the formerly charming movie formula of single parent falls for child's teacher, or young professional woman forgoes the "perfect" guy for the "perfect for her" colleague, or even coma patient saves Christmas for the people around her and emerges from her coma perfectly made up and in love (preferably with another coma patient) just doesn't seem to be working for me anymore.  And if I hear "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" or "Santa Baby" one more time I am going to lose it.

This is a terrible state to be in on December 2nd and with my family depending on me to deliver and a Christmas issue submission deadline looming, it's time to fight back.

But the question is, how to become a re-peak-er?  (or would that be a peak-again-er, I'm a little unclear about the specifics of peaking)

The plan (and forgive me for its lack of complexity, but I'm working off-the-cuff here):  Do something Christmassy every day between now and Christmas.  And that doesn't include watching other people enjoy a fantasy Christmas on tv or listening to yet another rendition of "White Christmas."  I mean doing something authentic, no matter how small, to celebrate the season.

Hopefully I'll be able to re-manufacture some Christmas spirit.  Maybe I'll come to some new understanding of the true meaning of Christmas or maybe I'll just end up finishing my Christmas to-do list.  Either way, here goes...

Day 1:

Pulled out my advent calendar and added one ornament.   This advent calendar is hanging in my kitchen, hence the very un-Christmassy rooster hook.  It's also hanging above the dog's dishes which means the ornaments sometimes end up in the water bowl on the way to the tree.

The kids will take turns adding ornaments to the tree every night from now on and inevitably we will forget whose night it is and an argument will ensue.  Can't get more authentic than that!





Hmmm... there appears to be very little change in my Christmas spirit so far.  Could be the rooster.  Onward...