Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Dreaming of a white Christmas

  Yes, I know. I have been a very, very bad blogger. Blame it on ADHD. Blame it on four kids, the holidays, four shows at the same time, the cats (we blame the cats for everything anyway), blame it on the cold weather. I have slacked.

The holidays at Casa Cirque were wonderful, busy, full of light and noise and craziness and I am exhausted. I love hosting Christmas at our house. My husband, who gets to put up with my obsessing over menus, and domicile cleanliness, and decor, for weeks ahead of time, is slightly less thrilled but enjoys not having to drive anywhere, so he goes along.

So a quick catch up and then I promise I'll give you something interesting to read tomorrow.

Mary and Tim sang "Do You Hear What I Hear" in church on Christmas Eve and let me tell you, I might be veering sharply into Mama Rose territory, but I was so stinking proud of my little girl. She practiced her heart out, and then literally five minutes before she was supposed to sing, something broke on her brand new doll and she started to cry. I sent her in the back with Tim, hoping she'd calm down, but I wasn't too optimistic. At the last second, I got the doll's skirt fixed (my dad is the real life version of MacGyver and every now and then, a glimmer of it manifests in my gene makeup) and showed Mary. She dried her tears, walked out in front of a packed church, and sang like nothing had happened. She was on key, she was cute, she smiled, and I would have cried except I was also trying to keep Anna and Lily in the pew. 

Christmas morning Lily woke up at a quarter to five, raring to go. She was grinning, she was chatting. I gave up and started breakfast, and we were opening presents by 6:30. Around 8 I totally crashed and took a nap before my parents and brother and sister in law arrived at 11. 

No one got food poisoning. No one fought. Nothing broke. Anna got her "working owl" and was thrilled. My brother made the girls a doll house and they spent the next four hours playing in peaceful bliss. Seriously, there was not one time out on Christmas and that right there is a little miracle in and of itself. 

The tree came down on December 26 because I put it up way earlier than I usually do and it was making me twitch to see it in the corner once the holiday had passed. I was somewhat tempted to take it down after the girls went to bed on the 25th but I was too tired.

OH. OH. On the 26th I went out in search of my white Christmas tree. I knew a full size one wasn't in the budget this year, because even at half off the ones I liked were still going to be close to $200. I went to Target, where they had had cute little two foot tinsel trees. None, and the place was a madhouse. I went to WalMart where it was also a zoo and the only white trees they had were tall, expensive and looked like you'd expect a WalMart tree to look on a bad day. I got some wrapping paper for next year and called it good.

I tried HomeGoods and found a cookie cutter for $1 but no tree.

TJMaxx had nothing. 

Then I ventured to Kohl's. I was on the phone with Tim.

"I see a pink tree. They have a pink tree and it's little but no white tree and- OH MY GOSH THEY HAVE A WHITE TREE I GOTTA GO."

There was one. Just one, and it was a floor model, about four feet high and thin. A table top tree. I looked at the boxed trees. The two foot trees were $6, but they only had pink and blue. The four foot boxed trees were either pink or gold. I hailed two clerks before someone could help me. By then I had pulled it off the display and was holding it.

"So can I just bring up a pink boxed tree and have them scan that?" I asked.

"Um...I guess..." said the guy who looked like he was in college and wanted to be anywhere but working retail the day after Christmas. (I did it for years, friend, I understand.)

"Will that mess up your inventory?"

"Maybe...I don't know. They'll sell it to you, though."

"Good enough!" I said, grabbing a boxed pink tree. It was hard to hold them both. 

"Do you need, like help?" I tried to make eye contact around the boughs and nearly lost an eye.

"No, I'm good," I lied. "I'm good. Just gotta grab a cart." I tilted and veered to the front of the store, bushy white branches blocking my view. People stared. I put them in a cart. The top of the tree stuck out merrily. I went back and grabbed some mini purple ornaments and a little teal garland and called it good.

The sales clerk at the register looked at me like I was nuts but gave me a small "floor model" discount. I gave her a boxed pink tree. 

$15.

I got all of it for $15.

Sure some of the lights don't work (as in, the top half of the tree). I don't care. It's cute and light and I love it.

And I'll probably leave it up until August at this point.




No comments:

Post a Comment