Christmas tree | The Sadder But Wiser Girl

The Mediocre Christmas Tree

We were a day late getting the tree up and decorated this year, mainly because we hosted Thanksgiving. Now that’s not as glamorous as it sounds. Really as soon as I typed that I pictured Pat Sajak and Vanna White standing in my living room. Since I don’t have letters on my tree, they aren’t necessary.

BUT I DIGRESS. Focus lady, focus. I’m fighting some sort of mutated alien respiratory virus that’s sure to keep me sick for awhile. It’s hard to concentrate under these conditions.

As the kids decorated the tree and then for the next two weeks continued to undecorate and redecorate it, I found it very interesting what ornaments they thought were neat and which ones they barely paid attention to. I thought it would be cool to take a closer look at some of these ornaments and their story. This past week I read that Three Monkeys and a Martini is having a contest. A favorite Christmas tree contest. At first I wasn’t really interested because I don’t consider my tree to be very awesome. It’s not very big. It’s fake-because I am ALLERGIC. I really am! Evil Genius doesn’t believe me. I figured the trip to the ER here a few years back would have been the kicker.

It’s just a Mediocre tree, but it’s full of memories and stories and that’s what really counts. The more I thought about it, I decided it would be good to do the contest after all as well as do this post. So here are some of the things you’ll find on our tree:

Plastic icicles and snowflakes-Totally cheesy. But we had the icicles as a kid and I always thought they were cool. Mom and I were at a thrift store and they had some. They do look very sparkly on the tree. And they must look good under the easy chair because that is where I keep finding them, every stinking night.

Bride and Groom Snowpeople– My Mom made these for me for our first Christmas as a married couple. Another one that my daughter will not leave alone. She thinks they are so cute! As I took the picture, I see the groom is MIA. Typical.

One Fish, Two Fish-I love Dr Seuss. I think I need a Green Eggs and Ham to go with it, don’t you?

Captain Picard-I actually had more than one Star Trek guy once upon a time. We also had the doctor from Voyager. First he lost his arm and then was seriously maimed beyond recognition. This was a joint effort between a toddler boy and a very evil kitty cat. Now I think the Borg are after Picard-he keeps trying to get out of his little doorway.

Celestial-I have a thing for the heavens, and celestial stuff. Not as much as I used to, I mean I used to have a whole celestial bathroom for pete’s sake. it was kind of scary. I’ve toned it down, saving my celestial stuff for a few places here and there. I’m more into mandalas and stuff like that now. I guess it’s part of my lifelong search for peace and zen.

Starbucks-Oh yeah, I have two. Probably the cheapest thing I’ve ever bought there!

Ms Thing keeps a close eye on things.

Dough Ornaments-We used to make a lot of ornaments out of dough that my mom would mix up for us when we were kids. After they were baked, we would paint them. Unfortunately, between humidity and kids they don’t last as long as I would like them to. The one in the picture is one my mom made of our family recently.

Cat Ornaments-I used to have a lot of cat ornaments. Now I don’t. Most have disappeared or have been physically destroyed. This time I’m looking at the black kitty, who is trying to be the alpha kitty in the household…

Recycled-My very favorites. I am into that kind of stuff. I used to work at Eddie Bauer, and they would always have these neat recycled ornaments. A couple of years I bought some to give and some to keep. One is recycled glass and the other is some sort of recycled metal (probably made from cans and then painted to look like its copper).

The tree in a raindrop (or is it a teardrop)??-My daughter thinks this is the most beautiful thing on the face of the planet. It’s a plastic teardrop with a little silver christmas tree inside of it. She has taken the tree out of the teardrop about 3,000 times since we put the tree up. I had to hide it to keep it from her. That’s because it’s very old. I had to call my Mom to ask about that one because I wasn’t sure of the story. It was my grandmothers and her mothers before that. Now of course this is the one I really wanted to take a picture of it, and it is missing. Again.

There are many other notable ornaments on my tree. Like the ornament I got my first year of teaching from one student who made me tear my hair out. As crazy as he drove me, that kid could sing, and I convinced him to try out for a local music group. He made it, and has been singing ever since. There are ornaments from my childhood. And many others that tell a story. I really don’t want this post to take ten hours to read, do you?

There are a few things that you WILL NOT see on my tree. Like anything breakable. If I had anything breakable it’s long gone. Again due to Evil Kitty, my kids, and this year a dog with a big lethal tail. Also I have yet to really have any ornaments made for me by my kids. One is not inclined to do it, the other whisks her creations away to be found later. And really only ONE Star Wars ornament, and it’s not a Death Star that lights up. Some day I WILL HAVE ONE!

My tree may not be the grandest, but it is definitely our tree because we have made it our own. Do you have any ornaments on your tree that are special?

: Pretty sparklies…

: Bride Snowwoman

: One Fish Two Fish…

: Captain Picard

: Celestial ornaments

: Starbucks coffee!

: Dough People Family

: The only surviving cat ornament

: Recycled Ornaments

: Ms Thing keeps a close eye on things.

Some Christmas trees will just stand there and stare at you if you don’t decorate them in a timely manner. This is kind of creepy.

I lied to all of my readers. I said we always decorate the day after Thanksgiving. As it turned out, we got busy doing other things and did not get around to it. However, Saturday morning rolled around and it was obviously time to prepare for another holiday. Time to decorate! Princess Christmas made sure that Evil Genius was aware that it was time to set up the tree. She marched upstairs, went into the bedroom where he had just awakened (because we are very nice to him and let him sleep sometimes) and informed him that he needed to “Go downstairs and get the Christmas!”

In our house there is a certain way that you need to prepare for the upcoming holiday. It’s very important to follow the steps. I thought I’d publish this very important guide to getting ready. You know, just in case you need some guidance. As you read this, just imagine you’re hearing a little four year old voice saying “Let the Christmas Tree decorating COMMENCE!” (She really did say that…)

1) Getting Started: Say the words “Christmas”. That’s all you have to do. When you have little kids and you say the word, it causes planets to align and sets everything in to motion.

Christmas!

2) Decide where the tree is going to go this year. If your house is like ours this changes from year to year. Make sure that you choose the most inconvenient location in the house. This year Evil Genius chose to put it in the living room. This is fine, but we had to move a half dozen pieces of furniture that we don’t have any place for. That’s ok, do we really need to get out our front door or go into the adjoining room? Nah.

3) Bring the tree and decorations up out of the basement, or wherever you store them. Try not to kill yourself doing so. If you’re one of those people who isn’t deathly allergic to pine like I am (my eyes swell shut and everything) then go chop down a tree. THEN try not to kill yourself bringing decorations out.

4) Inspect containers for stowaways. Last year I went down to the basement to get the wreath hanger. I opened up one of the Christmas containers, and a little mouse peeked out through the Christmas lights at me, as if to say “HEY I’m SLEEPING in here!” I made my husband go through the container looking for mousies after the fact. He didn’t find any, but he did throw something small and mouse sized at me and made me FREAK OUT!

It was not this cute.

5) Restrain the four year old. Duct tape works well. If you don’t, every decoration that you own will be taken out and inspected, and then left on the floor.

6) Put up the tree. Realize you put it together wrong. Undo. Redo correctly.

7) Put the lights on the tree. See how many bulbs are burnt out. Take the lights back off. Replace with lights that work. Our lights would not light up on one side. The Grinch would have had a perfectly good reason to steal our tree.

He could have so taken our tree. Then we fixed it.

8) Decorate. We start with “the big necklace” (which normal people refer to as the garland). Then add the ornaments. Half will be dropped. Some will be broken. There will be yelling. This year at one point Princess Christmas tried to hang just hooks on the tree. No ornaments on them. Because they were there, of course.

This one turned out pretty sweet. The picture, I mean. She’s pretty sweet too sometimes.

9) Take pictures of the decorating. Because you can. I took 57 pictures and had not one shot that I would consider Christmas card material. Yet. My children will be forced to pose for at least 28 more times before I let them off the hook. I AM GOING TO GET GOOD CHRISTMAS CARD PICTURES THIS YEAR IF IT KILLS ME! I can’t order a card with different shots on it from Target this year. I can’t afford it. I must make them myself.

10) Booby trap the area. Do this so that no one can actually approach the tree and contaminate it. Use ornaments, hooks, and decorations.

11) Rearrange The kids do this to the ornaments about every 36 minutes or so.

12) Turn off the overhead lights. Stand back and admire your tree. Remember what the room looked like in the light, because for the next month you will not be allowed to turn on any lights in there except for the ones on the tree. Your children may or may not have vision problems as a direct result of sitting in front of the tree and staring at it.

Ooooooooooooooooooo….

13) Now, go decorate the rest of the house. Like that matters! The tree is up, my kids care about nothing else except that and the stockings! Spend the rest of the weekend on Pinterest, trying to find ideas to accomplish this feat. I’m trying to find ideas to make a wreath. I’m thinking shiny and noisy-jingle bells and Christmas balls. Stay tuned.