The Family (Or most of them)

The Family (Or most of them)
The Family

December 7, 2008

O Christmas Tree...O CHRISTMAS TREE!!!

Well, I was supposed to get together with Birthday Boy/Now Seedless Sac Master Homo Escapeons (or whatever he calls himself nowadays) on Thursday, then Friday, then Saturday.

It didn't happen.

For one reason or another on his side or mine, we could not meet. He couldn't get over here, or I couldn't get over there.

He could not visit to indulge in Stace's vegemite from Australia for a totally excellent blog post, to consume rye and pepsi's, horse doovruhs, pictures of him and his gone gonads, peanuts and smoked oysters and Phase 10.

And then, despite the best laid plans for me to head over to his place Saturday and to get beautiful hugs from his lovely lady-wife, who spoils me every time I go over there, I had to stay here to chaperone my son and his girlfriend.

He and I always know that we will meet soon and we'll have a testosterone-laden good time. On top of that, we'll simultaneously solve all the world's problems.

But circumstances didn't permit that to happen these last few days. It will.

In the meantime, though, another dominant force invaded my otherwise lonely, single tranquility this weekend. I had my kids with me.

And while the testosterone is always flying around uncontrollably when my now drama-driven 17-year-old son is here, the other "her"mones of my 20-year-old daughter more or less crowd out us two males.

And around Christmas, my daughter dominates even more than usual.

She's a very take-charge sort of girl, but that's not so unlike intelligent women that make the world go round. She's crazy about Christmas.

She's always been the one to kick me in the butt and insist the Christmas tree be erected on the first weekend in December that I have my kids.

And of course what that means is I get to do all the boring bull-work, then she flits in later to add all the decorative flair.

And that's what this post is all about.

So in this particular year, I found that the stand for my totally fake Christmas tree was more challenging than Christmases past.

Maybe this is saying something about my sex life as I age, but erecting a tall, straight tree is all about having a secure stand and base to begin with. It's all about putting the screws in the right holes, so to speak.

And there was a particular difficulty with that this year. Shall we call it "erectile dysfunction?"





After much fiddling around with my equipment through the use of pliers and other artificial aids to line up all the appropriate holes to align them properly with the screws, I finally got the dang thing more or less ready.


You can see the complications. I'm not talking about one screw and one hole. I'm talking about four screws and, altogether, 16 orifices. But eventually, I got them all to line up.





As you can see, my son was incredibly helpful.


Anyway, I finally got everything into the proper receptacles, which then allowed me to finally insert the tree into the stand.


But was my bullish work accomplished? No.


Then I had to adorn the tree with lights, which my daughter refuses to do. This was a two-day process, by the way. Erecting the tree and putting the lights on it was Day 1, Saturday.



So after Day 1, this was my progress.


What follows is Day 2. Once Queen Sheba decided it suited her to actually put the decorations on, she was all business. She even deigned that I could record her doing so.








She even was agreeable to being one of Bob's Beauties (Bob Barker of the Price is Right) in one of those goofy poses...
Here are some other Christmas decorations she did in my apartment...




Oh, and what about my son? Well, he slept through most of it. Then he woke up and asked me to make him a bacon and cheese omelette.



Merry Christmas!

16 comments:

  1. I see that your entertainment area still holds A LOT of photographs of Donn.

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  2. Do you force your son to sleep in the broom closet as punishment?

    The walls are closing in on him.

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  3. Your tree is marginally better than this one.

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  4. Wow... I don't think I've had a Christmas tree in my home since I moved out of mum and dad's place in 2000. Your daughter does a wonderful job of it, I must say. But I still like my way - ignoring the whole affair ;)

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  5. MJ:

    Well, girl, if I had the chance again, it would hold a lot more photographs of you and ME!

    For now, yeah, Donn seems to dominate. How sad.

    My son sometimes sleep in the living room on the couch, from which I evict him when I awake.

    Finally, my Xmas tree is WAY better than THAT ONE.

    Stace:

    You need to soften up girl and get in the Christmas spirit. Your kids will go all crazy over it. Really.

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  6. MJ
    I am a bit of a celebrity in these parts and most people have a few pictures of me in their homes?
    Whatev?

    This year I was especially happy to sit on my bag...
    of frozen peas and watch my good-lady-wife do her magic with our modest little tree...which is fun and colourful and cheery because we might as well be existing on PLUTO for the next 3 months so anything that helps get us through this sh*t is a welcome relief.

    Stace you should get a tree and do it up however you like as your interpretation of the hollowdays.
    Make a statement and hang weird inapropriate or ridiculously traditional items as an expression of your indifference or disdain or whatever. Have some fun with it.

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  7. Uh, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt in Donnnnnnnn's little diatribe to my blogging mistresses...

    But haven't we heard enough about your bloated bag?

    These were serious entries from MJ and Stace, and now you've wrecked them with your "It's all about me" thing.

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  8. Great job on the Xmas tree! It looks fantastic, just as delicious as the bacon and cheese omelette! I like holiday decorations, because they bring that Xmas feel with them.

    I need to get a new Xmas tree--preferably a Charlie Brown Xmas tree, small enough to set on an end table.

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  9. Eroswings:

    Thanks, a lot of blood and sweat and actual thinking went into the tree...

    About as much cholesterol, calories and whatever else to make his heart explode crap went into that four-egg omelette (the kid's an eating machine).

    My daughter has one of those little Christmas trees, a white one, it's about 2 feet high.

    She never takes it down. It's in her bedroom. They're available and quite nice.

    Merry Christmas Texas-style!!!

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  10. You're right, MJ, I just clicked that link... that is a shabby Christmas tree, and WW's is slightly better :)

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  11. We usually put up our tree the weekend before crimbo.... but we might go and cut one from Southwick Estate this weekend and make a start.... lets just see if I have the crimbo spirit first LOL

    Im so tempted to go buy a fake tree this year LOL but I just cant imagine crimbo without that pine smell in the mornings and the constant dropping of needles everywhere and the cat climbing the branches and one year our bunny nibble through the light wires LOL..... yep, its usually a mental house here over crimbo, like the rest of the year :)

    Your flat looks wellabit festive, maybe you have inspired me to maybe start thinking about crimbo and maybe go pressie buying or something lol..... I am to laid back sometimes for me own good :)

    x

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  12. I could not help but laugh while reading this. I could just picture you getting entangled in all those things. Too cute.

    Soft love
    T

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  13. Stace:

    My tree is WAY better! Even if it IS fake! Geez, you pregnant Aussie babes are a pain...

    Toasty:

    Buy a fake one and plug in one of those pine air fresheners somewhere, girl!

    Glad I could be an inspiration.

    Tara:

    Actually, after doing this for...what, 25 years or so, I finally figured out I should separate all the various strings of lights in plastic bags.

    So that part was way easier than usual.

    It was the dang tree stand that had me all "screwed" up...

    But hey, it's always nice to make you giggle a little...

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  14. The omelette looks yummy. You can make breakfast for me anytime.

    We aren't putting up a Christmas tree this year. There is too much baby stuff taking up all our free space.

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  15. Anna:

    Oh, OK. :-)

    Actually, I do enjoy cooking, but I usually overcook things, including omelettes.

    Maybe one day I'll do a post on my own method of cooking them. I'm getting better all the time.

    In fact, I think I should have my own show on the Food Network.

    You MUST buy a little artificial Xmas tree! You can buy beautiful small ones you can put on a coffee table or in a corner.

    And then you can pose with the twins beside it every year so they can see how they've grown!

    Do it!

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  16. aaah, a girl after my own heart- lights first then tinsel then decorations.
    you just have a bigger tree than i do, hhmmm...
    and my glugster also has had to get used to a huge tree (compared to the ones he's had before) and decorations all over the place!

    ReplyDelete

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