Muffin Top Christmas Tree

When it comes to ending the holiday season, I implement the same approach I use with break-ups: rip that Band-Aid off. No sense in keeping reminders of the reasons for the season around the house if it’s going to be another 364 days before that fat man in a red suit comes calling again. It’s over. Time to move on to the next day of celebration like, you know, New Years or National Clean Off Your Desk Day. (January 10, if you want to add it to your calendar.)  So, once the date flipped to December 26, I decided I had delayed long enough. Time to pack away all things draped with tinsel, striped with peppermint, or hitched to a reindeer.

It’s easy to romanticize holiday preparations: watching the Yule log burn in the fireplace, searching for the perfect greeting card to capture your sentiments about the season, decorating the Christmas tree. No one waxes poetic about the other annual tradition: taking all of this crap down. But just as the stocking were hung by the chimney with care, so must those same stockings be wadded up, jammed in the corner of a repurposed cardboard box, and wedged onto a shelving unit in a basement... with care.

I know pencil trees are all the rage, with their emaciated limbs and their exposed stumps. But, when it comes to holiday shrubbery, I’m a chubby chaser. I like my trees fat. Plump branches popping out everywhere, barely able to squish into the corner of a room. Pottery Barn can keep its rail-thin trees with boyish hips. My dream Christmas tree would have a muffin top.

Confession: I do … have … an artificial tree. I’m a faker. Nothing against you real-tree-ifites. I’m sure the idea of driving two hours to a field, slugging through frozen mud, saw in hand, to pick out your favorite tree holds a certain amount of charm for you. But before you wag your sap-sticky finger at me, let me point out that what you are doing when you walk through that man-made forest of firs is basically playing judge, jury, and executioner. Think about it: if you were a glorious evergreen, reaching your piney needles towards the sun, working to stand taller and taller each year, what is the last thing you would want? I would bet being chopped down, bound and strapped to the top of a Volkswagon would be high on your list. Better wash off that sap, it’s basically tree blood on your hands.

Then what do you do? You drag this tree into a dark hot room, screw to a stand, and barely give it enough to drink. I mean, depending on your level of dedication to Real Tree Protocol you’re pretty much starving or waterboarding that thing through the holidays. Then what do you do, once the limbs have drooped and the needles have piled up on your hardwood floor (another example of plant murder, by the way)? Do you drag it down your driveway and dump its woody corpse by the curb? From the views out my car window on the drive to work on January 2^nd, hell yes you do. And I, a shunned tree faker have to see all of these violations of the Geneva Conventions for days on end. If I actually catch someone doing the dragging deed down the driveway, fighting the branches trying to grab the cement and fight back, I always have the urge to roll down my window and shout, “BRING OUT YER DEAD! BRING OUT YER DEAD!”

Disposing of an artificial tree doesn’t boast much more dignity, though. Growing up, we used to take out each individual branch, smooth down its pipe-cleaner branches, and stuff each one in a cardboard box that had long ago lost its structural integrity and required bandages of duct tape to, you know, be a box. So we basically dismembered it every year. (Side note: I learned another tidbit of Procreator knowledge this weekend while visiting my college roommate and her three little girls. You know, the little angels of bathtub poop fame from a blog post earlier this year? Noncreators out there, listen up. Whenever a child mentions that he/she used to have a pet butterfly but doesn’t have it anymore, never ask what happened to it. The answer will almost never be that it flew away. Instead, it will be that a sibling killed it by pulling off its wings. You’re welcome.)

That was back in the days before trees came pre-lit and in three, easy-to-assemble sections. What used to take over an hour now takes about five minutes and some moderate hefting. Last year my parents even gave me an upgrade on the old box storage method with a tree bag. It’s basically a big red duffel bag with a handle on one end and two wheels on the other. (Sadly, in my college days, I could have easily filled it up with primping items and clothing options for a three-day trip. I had yet to learn what it means to “travel light.”) So all I have to do is give each tree section a bear hug to squash the branches, shove it in the duffel bag, and zip it up.

Once again, my love of all things fat when it comes to trees made this a little more difficult than it should have been. Despite the fact that the duffle was so large it could moonlight as an above-ground pool cover, I could barely get the thing zipped up. After wrenching the zipper pull the last few inches, I exhaled in relief and walked over to the basement door to prepare for the final descent. That’s when I looked back and saw this:

Looks kind of like a body bag, doesn’t it?

There is nothing less Christmas-feeling than thumping a body bag down the stairs to the basement and shoving it into a closet. I felt like I had literally stuffed Santa into a duffel bag and dragged him into a storage unit. I couldn’t get the bag all the way into the closet, despite multiple kicks and shoves. Eventually I gave up, leaving the corpse of Christmas past sticking halfway out and propping the closet door open. So now, every time I go down to throw in a load of laundry, I get to see this depressing site:

Sorry, Santa. Like a phoenix from the ashes, you will rise again next year.

Another challenge to de-Christmasfication that no one talks about is what to do with all of the greeting cards that cheered up one’s mailbox and mantle for the past few weeks. Growing up I loved getting letters in the mail, especially when I would move to a new state and wrote letters to keep in touch with old friends. Now the only people I lick a stamp for are the County Treasurer (for my taxes) and my grandma. But I still send out holiday cards every December and love the fact that some of my friends and family do the same.

Here’s the dilemma, though: what to do with them after the holidays have come and gone? I used to let them linger under magnets on my fridge until mid-March when I finally had to move them to make way for shower invitations and baby announcements. But I got a sleek new fridge for Christmas which is too cool for magnets, meaning that I can’t use them on its stainless steel finish. Normally, after I’m done reading regular pieces of mail I just throw them away. So I gathered up the greeting cards and went over to the trash can...

Okay, throwing these away used to be way easier when most of the cards just boasted blinged-out cardinals perched in snowy trees, or that old broad Maxine smoking a ciggy and crabbing about mall parking lots. But now everyone sends cards with pictures of their families posed around fireplaces or donning reindeer antlers. I love getting them because I get to see their familiar faces beaming out Christmas cheer. However, tossing my cousin, his wife, and their two perfect kids into the trash can beside egg shells and snotty Kleenex seems a little callous. I decided to pull those and only throw away the non-photo cards.

The rest of the cards have either the Angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, or Jesus staring up at me. Could I really toss Christ into the trash can? Now I get why some religions don’t allow for the replication of any image of their prophets. Sure, it is partially about avoiding worship of false idols. But it also avoids the whole, what-to-do-with-this-calendar-of-our-God-once-the-year-is-over fiasco. Then again, I’m sure Jesus wouldn’t care. He probably gets sick of seeing his face plastered all over Hallmark greeting cards anyway, since I'm guessing he probably is not getting a cut. Also, I'm pretty sure no newborn baby that just got popped out into a manger of hay would have ivory skin, a cherub smile, and a full mop of golden curls. So, when you think about it, these aren’t even actual pictures of Jesus. They are just pictures of a one of those Precious Moments figurines, pretending to be Jesus in some greeting card holiday pageant. That’s right. No violation of papal law to toss these. And with that final thought, I drop them into the trash can and continued to de-Christmasfy my kitchen.

Then I couldn't stop thinking of Jesus … sitting down there … in the dark …. by those Kleenexes and  broken egg shells. He probably hates it down there. Visions of Jesus crawling out of the trash can, that donkey of his giving him a boost, only to sneak up on me in the family room and rap my toes with that golden halo of his.

Five minutes. That’s how long I left the Son of God in the trash before fishing him out, brushing him off, and stuffing him with the other family photo greeting cards and my childhood nativity set (ironically, from Precious Moments) to store away for another year. I wasn’t sure that the basement would be much of an improvement over the trash can. But it was good enough for the tree body bag. It had to be better than the recycling center.

The hardest part sometimes is remembering how everything looked before all this silver and gold had infiltrated one’s home. This year I had to search through my pictures for references about where a particular fake fig tree went. And everything does look a little bare for a few days afterwards, like some sort of Decoration Withdrawal. The corner where the tree was looks especially barren. And a little dark, now that all of the twinkling lights of the tree are gone. Come to think of it … maybe it could use a lamp…

Christmas Etsyfied

This Christmas, I decided to 'Etsyfy" it up and give mostly homemade presents. Now, before you start rolling your eyes in anticipationg of a blog post about Kleenex box covers made out of construction paper and sequins, know that I actually have some pretty good chops in the DIY department, as long as it involves yarn. What I DON'T have is good time estimation skills when it comes to making things out of yarn.

Christmas 2012 Mission Etsyfied Project Summary:

• 5 pairs of mittens (4 of them with a "convertible" top for a free-finger option),
• 1 scarf, 
• 1 pair of granny square mittens,
• 1 hat, and
• 1 pair of less-granny-like slippers

With that many projects, you would expect me to start them in ... oh ... mid-October, right? That is what I should have done. That is not what I actually did. Instead, I decided to start them on December 1st. And I also kept adding projects because I thought of new people who would like a pair of mittens or a slouchy beret hat. Needles to say -- Okay, I know that's supposed to be "needless to say" but I typed "needles" in some sick sub-concious spelling tendency. And, in a tribute to how knitting-brained I am right now, I'm leaving it -- I wound up staying up until about 2AM for the past two weeks, knit-one-purl-one-ing the night away. Keep in mind I still went to work. I shudder to think about the email mistypes I must have sent out during the month. There and They're and Their, oh my!

Sadly, this isn't my first error in time estimation when it comes to homemade holiday gifts. A few years back I crocheted my mom an afghan. Well, that was my intention. What I actually did was crochet her 108 tiny granny squares. I assumed that, once I finished making each little square, it would take me about twenty minutes to whip-stitch them together.

It took me two hours to just lay them out on the floor in the guest room.

That left me about ten minutes before we left for church on Christmas Eve to finish it up. Always quick on my feet in a Christmas gift crisis, I cleverly scribbled a note on a piece of paper, placed the note in the middle of the squares, and shut the door. Three hours later, I led my mom back to to the guest room, let her "open" the present by opening the door, and voila! There was my mom's present: 108 granny squares lying below a note that said "Some Assembly Required."

I find that, if you can luck into a joke that genuinely makes someone laugh, they'll mostly forgive the fact that you half-assed their Christmas gift.

Sewing those squares turned out to be a two-day project I did finish sewing them together during that holiday break, but forgot to do the finishing embroidery stitches. So, instead of an afghan of four poinsettias, my mom now proudly displays every Christmas an afghan of abstract triangles of red, green, and white. This tradition always elicits laughter and jokes at my expense. I take these in stride, since I don’t really have any defense. I gave her that afghan six years ago and it still isn’t finished. I deserve to get a little ribbing about it. (Ribbing! As in the knitting pattern on the cuff of mittens! How AM I doing this?)

I hope that your holidays were merry and bright! Wishing you a new year filled with health and happiness.

PROGRESS!

Progress was made this weekend! I actually had a crapload of stuff to do for work, in addition to some final Christmas shopping and knitting to get done. And yet, I decided to put that all off and work on Project DeLampification. So the trick to getting me moving was just finding things that I dreaded even more than tackling the Lamp Room.

That's right. Check it out. Clutter? Eliminated. Crafting & sewing materials? Organized. Lamps?

...

Okay, no lamps have actually left the room. But three of them have been reassigned to new duties! So now it's just down to four fixtures looking for employment. Luckily, my sister and her husband just bought a new home that has about twice as many rooms. I'm sure some of those rooms would enjoy the addition of a warm glow. Like it or not, my sister and brother-in-law are getting lamps for Christmas. (And yes, that is a laundry hamper of yarn in the corner. I may have gone on a little shopping spree at Jo-Ann Fabrics the other day.

I even did a little feng-shui-ing to the furniture, thanks to a healthy bout of elbow grease, grunting, and a possibly strained lower back. (Note: I don't actually understand anything about the practice of feng shui. I just inappropriately use that phrase anytime I rearrange furniture into a more practical arrangement. Makes it sound more impressive than moving-stuff-around-until-you-no-longer-run-into-chairs-and-bookcases-when-trying-to-enter-and-exit-the-room.) I picked up some canvas boxes last year during my first spree of reorganization (that was pre-lamp) and decided to pop them into the shelves. This is what I love about boxes and baskets: you can get away with looking organized without actually "organizing anything. I just dumped the things that had been on the shelves and in the drawers into the totes. Boom! False advertising. Just don't ask me where I put the power cord for the sewing machine. Or the extra glue gun sticks. Or my VHS tape of Riverdance. They're all in there somewhere.

Now that everything is cleaned up and a bit more blank-slate-like, I'm starting to get excited about the potential of the room. It definitely needs some work. The walls boast a few dings, and there's an actual broken hole in the closet door. But I'm excited to try something new. Thank goodness it's a relatively slow couple of weeks at work, since I plan on spending QUITE a bit of time on Pinterest. :)

Oh, one last mystery to the room: I still can't figure out which electrical outlet that light switch controls. That's the nice thing about having so many lamps: I was able to plug one in to each socket, turn them all, on then flip the switch to see which one went dark. No luck. Either these lamps are insubordinate, or the switch is just a red herring. All for show. Electricity is beyond my DIY comfort zone, so I'm content to leave that mystery unsolved for now.

Enjoy your "NO" for the moment, light switch. Your time will come...

Now I just have to figure out what I hate even more so than crowds and angry parent emails to get me to brave the mall and my inbox. Emptying the dishwasher should do it.

Operation De-Lampification: Week 2 Update

It's been about two weeks since I publically posted my private shame of a spare bedroom that had been infested with lamps. My plan was to use regular blog postings about the de-lampification process to pressure me into action. Two weeks in, I've learned something very important about myself:



Apparently I am incredibly tolerable of public humiliation. Especially when avoiding it will require me to actually do something. Laziness it is!

The only work I've done to the Lamp Room is to shuffle some of the lamps around to make it easier to access non-lamp items in the room. Not really any significant progress. Just, you know, herded them into a corner of the room. I did manage to "herd" the lamps multiple times. The first roundup was triggered by me needing to get into the closet located directly behind the lamps. So I moved them all to the other side of the room, directly in front of the bookshelf. A few day later, I had to get something off the bookshelf. Translation: lamps dragged across the room again ... back in front of the closet.

I have danced this little do-si-do three times now. So I'm getting REALLY good at moving the lamps. I'm going to take that as a sign of progress. Also, last weekend I had the excuse of food poisoning, which led to a non-productive Sunday. This weekend, I don't really have an excuse. But that means that, technically, I'm only a week behind where I should be. And, thanks to Pinterest, I've done a TON of online research on what I envision this room eventually looking like. I work in academia: I'm all about the literature review, much more so than the experiment or application of results.