Impractical outdoor decorations for this part of Oregon, I'm going to enjoy my snowman couple until the rains start again. Ho ho ho.
Many mornings, as I'm walking out the door for work, start out with the parting comment, "Honey, when you get a minute today, why don't you..."
Mick probably appreciates that as much as I did when I had a newborn who was failing to thrive and HAD COLIC, thank you very much,and my idiot shop steward told me that I could just do this and that now that I had "all that free time". Yes, he did too say that.
But actually, Mick doesn't have a newborn, does he? And no, Zeus and Louise don't come even close since when can just boot them outside when they become too annoying. While the non-stop, losing-our-minds colic did tempt us, we never actually stuck a child outdoors to get some peace. We deserve some sort of reward for that because both girls put us through colic. If you think you know what hell is, you don't, unless you've survived colic.
But I digress...So I was so pleased when I pulled into the driveway last night to be greeted by festive cheer. He listened!
I am weary of the sniping and moaning and carrying on about the commercialization of Christmas. One of my favorite aunts used to snidely refer to Christmas as "Merchants' Day". Ok, I get it. I really do. But I also believe that Christmas is what you make of it.
I'm guilty of having spent too much and worse, having spent unwisely, in the past. But for the most part, no matter how much I spend, I put a lot of thought into the gifts that I choose. This year is going to be tight. This year a lot of relatives are probably going to receive photos (some of which are quite nice), so that Sam and Miranda can receive the gift-gifts.
Miranda is refreshingly generous of spirit and non-materialistic. Sam is refreshingly autistic and sees herself as the center of the universe, and of course, she is--the center of her universe. In any case, Christmas will be smaller in some ways. Yet, I'm not depressed. I'm not grumpy. I'm not scroogey. I'm still looking forward to Christmas. Because not only do I love Christmas, I also love making time and a half. That's the materialist in me coming out.
I was a little let down that Sam hadn't drug out the tree during the Thanksgiving preparations as she had the year before. The year that the turkey was put on hold because piece by piece and ornament by ornament, Sam was going to decorate for Christmas. Of course, when they start putting the Christmas decorations side by side with the Halloween decorations, an autistic kid is going to have Christmas on the brain. We've spent less time in the stores this Fall, hence Sam's lag in enthusiasm.
We dug out our new Christmas tree last Saturday. I'm pleased with this tree (pictures to come once we find an appropriately sized topper) because not only is it fiber-optic and rather beautiful (yeah, a little on the puny side, but beautiful), but it ended up being a steal! After Christmas last year, while using gift cards at the Super Walmart in Salem, I came upon a display of these trees, originally priced at $99.99, on sale for $49.99. Great, I thought, and put one in our cart. When we reached the check-out stand, a veritable nightmare of inefficiency at Salem's Super Walmart, a store that normally has me feeling homicidal by the end of the experience, I left feeling positively jubilant! Because the final price for our tree was...$24.99!
Christmas is coming, like it or not. I choose, whole-heartedly, to like it. Ornaments and decorations evoke memories, inspire sentiment and good cheer. Once again, I'm looking forward to the holiday.
Cuter in person, the penguins are part of our holiday cheer.
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