An Out of Order Holiday

I don't know if I'm getting senile, losing my marbles, or just plain nuts (don't answer that) but I have the sudden, inexplicable urge to prepare a Thanksgiving feast and eat it in front of the Christmas tree. I blame it on David.

We (and by 'we' I mean David) don't usually drag down all our Christmas decorations from the attic this early so it's all his fault. The day after Thanksgiving has always been our designated time to destroy our house for a week or two while we decorate for Christmas– until this year. Throwing caution and good sense to the wind, David put up the tree. He claimed he was putting it up so we (he) can decide if we'll keep it or return it to the store. We soon discovered the remote control was defective when we bought it last year but it was too late to make an exchange. I felt I was left with no other alternative except to decorate it while he made up his mind. Who wants a naked tree in their living room? Right?

So after a few more days had gone by while we debated its return, I enlisted the help of one of our granddaughters and we spent a few hours sorting ornaments and choosing which ones to use this year. I regaled her with stories of when and where each one was attained. When her eyes glazed over I cut my monologue short (teenagers are such fun-killers) and placed one last ornament. Now we have to keep it. It'd be too much trouble to take the decorations off and put them back in their storage boxes. Besides, the tree will never fit back into the box it came out of. I've never been able to figure out why nothing ever goes back into its original box. It must be some kind of evil elf magic.

After a job well done, I sat down in my recliner, sipped hot chocolate and admired our work. That's when I made a startling discovery. I had forgotten to put the garland on the tree. The garland always has to go on first. What the heck? So now I've been debating whether it'd be worth the effort to take the ornaments off and add the garland or blow it off. Our trees have always had garlands. What to do? What to do?

Maybe I could go all department store fancy and run some twisty ribbon down the sides, or artfully add some big bows here and there. Har! That'll be the day. A decorator with an eye for what looks good, I am not. That's probably why our tree has pretty much looked the same for almost 50 years. The only difference was when we had to switch from real trees to artificial ones because of our son's allergies. I've been debating the garland dilemma for a couple of days now and if I don't make a decision soon David's gonna lose it.

Why would he care, you ask? It's because all the rest of our decorations for the house are EVERYWHERE. I have already removed our regular knickknacks to make room so the coffee table is covered, the dining table is covered, even our couch is covered. I'd better get it sorted out soon or I'm afraid he'll volunteer to do it for me. I have enough trouble letting the grandkids help with the tree; I cannot let him place the rest of the decorations around the house.

This is the only time of the year I'm a bit of a control freak. The rest of the year I'm more of a 'go with flow' type. As long as everyone else is happy, I'm happy.

Our family will be enjoying Thanksgiving a little early since our kids hightail it to their respective in-laws for the holidays. I don't know how it happened but year by year we seemed to get pushed back to accommodate their spouses' families' schedules. One year I was cooking the turkey and carving the pumpkins the same week.

I've been talking to myself (since I'm the only one I'll listen to) and I'm thinking Christmas decorations in the living room (where our tree is located) and Thanksgiving with the faux ceramic turkey in the dining room where we'll be serving turkey no one will eat but it's tradition dang it and ham that will keep us in sandwiches for weeks or until we get sick of it and start feeding it to the dog. I wonder if anyone would notice if I used leftover Halloween candy instead of candy canes on the tree. It's a Christmas miracle that we haven't eaten it all yet. That's a record for us.

Happy Hallo-Thanks-Christmas, y'all.