Note to Self: Get it Together!

For the past few days I have been trying to write this post in such a way as to not come across as an ungrateful, spoiled brat. 

Hard to do when I have been exactly that.

As everyone knows, I love to decorate for Christmas. (If you don’t know that then either we haven’t met or you’re not paying attention.)  I don’t just love to decorate; I aspire to be the talk of the neighborhood.  I compete with neighbors to have the most lights, the most blow up decorations, the brightest house in the court. 

I don’t know what it is like getting through December without having to flip the breaker switch when I want to use my hair dryer.  I have been known to put one too many strings together outside – enough to blow the whole display. 

Does that deter me???  Ha! Of course not.

Here it is December 15 and I only have a few decorations outside! I could blame the weather (and believe me, I will) but it isn’t just that.  I have been busy at work and busy taking care of Robert and his increasing needs. I have had help from the kids in the past but they are out of the house and living their lives! How dare they!

Plus, it has been raining like crazy!  Good for the California drought; bad for my Christmas lights.

The inside decorations even got a late start.  I have been telling myself that it’s okay.  My deadline is December 24, after all. 

We have a large outdoor shed with our Christmas decorations. The shed is the size of a bedroom – a bedroom! Full of Christmas decorations! Which is awesome although quite daunting when my to-do list is ridiculously overloaded and those aforementioned kids are no longer around to haul boxes inside in assembly line fashion.

I had the brilliant idea of letting myself off the hook.  I’ll take it slow, I said.  I will just do what I can as time allows. 

Then the calendar turned to December 2^nd and I was back to “OH MY GOD! I HAVE TO DECORATE THE HOUSE!”

I hauled the boxes in, separating inside and outside décor.  Having the rain helped me prioritize: inside first.  Richard and I took Robert to the local hardware store to buy not one but two Christmas trees. I love having two trees – I had two growing up and think it just stuck in my brain that was just the right amount to have. (Of course, this isn’t the seventies so our tree is not the classy artificial white one with red ornaments.)

Richard and I usually get a very large tree for the front room and a smaller one for the family room where Robert spends most of his time. I mean, we have to leave room for Robert.  I get it - I'm not crazy, you know.

This year, I had every intention of getting one huge tree and one smaller tree but realized we needed to get two smaller trees. Richard’s back was already killing him when we were picking out the trees and I could barely stand them up to find the best one. Robert found the one for his room in two seconds flat – his were easy to stand up and turn around.

“That’s a good one," he said after the second spin.  Sold!

Richard and struggled with the ten foot trees and I finally looked at him and said we should get a smaller tree.  Let’s get a six foot tree.  That way, we can get both of them in the house without causing enough pain to warrant a three day recovery period. It would be easy to set up and decorate. Sold!

Both trees actually fit on top of Richard’s SUV and neither fell off! (Not that that’s ever happened to us.)

We got them in the house and set up and took our time decorating them. Just because we could. (And, you know, because the kids weren’t around. Kids – growing up and living their life; the nerve!)

But during this week, I found myself calling the living room tree my “Charlie Brown” tree.  Yes, I was calling my six foot full tree a Charlie Brown tree.

Even I knew how ridiculous I sounded so didn’t dare say this out loud. Goodness! How ungrateful could I be? I have two six foot trees in my house!

Spoiled. Rotten.

As we put on the decorations, both trees came to life.  Robert sat in his wheelchair and put ornaments on the tree.  I found a holiday music station on the television and we listened to classic holiday music. 

Robert, much to my surprise, even sang along to a song or two!

We drank hot chocolate and busily unwrapped the decorations and slowly but steadily emptied the boxes. 

The trees are done, the indoor décor boxes have been put in the shed and my house is starting to look like Christmas.  The outside still needs work but that will come along.  I still have time! If we don’t win the unofficial (aka, existing only in my head) neighborhood decorating contest, that will be okay. 

I think.  Unless my Spoiled Rotten self returns. 

Oh, I better get back out there – rain or no rain.

There are some traditions I just can’t give up! 

A Caregiving Holiday Blog Party!

For whatever reason this year, many of our Christmas decorations decided this was the year to stop working.  Several strands of lights went through the “testing” phase of putting up decorations, only to stay dark (and, yes, we checked them on a different outlet in case our outlet was the problem).  Our lighted candy canes that usually brightly line our walkway still line the walkway but you’ll need to use the light from the lights in the nearby tree and the snowflakes hanging from the gutters to illuminate your way to our door.  We also had to say goodbye to the usual lighted holly we hang above our garage. 

Goodness, it was as if they all looked at each other and said, “We’ve worked long enough.  Let the elves make a few more candy canes and string lights and holly, we’ve paid our dues.”

So, off they went to Occupy the Garbage Bin.  

Inside, the situation was similar.  Lights didn’t work and a couple of ornaments broke (both of them Nebraska Cornhusker ornaments, no doubt shattering themselves to oblivion due to a disappointing football season).  At least we had about a thousand other ornaments and a beautiful, albeit, slightly banged up tree.

Looking good after a rocky start!

We don’t usually intentionally get a banged up tree but this year was special.  This was the first year our tree flew off the roof of our car during the trip home.

Yep.  A 10’ foot tree, freshly cut from a nearby Christmas Tree Farm flew off of our SUV on a two lane road and landed in the next lane over but miraculously avoided hitting any other cars.    

Bonus: it didn’t even get run over.

My husband would have loved to keep that part of our Christmas tree experience just between us and our son who was riding in the backseat (and who looked about as shocked as an 18 year old boy trying to maintain some semblance of “cool” can look), but with technology today, I had already texted our daughters and was in the middle of posting the event on Facebook when his request for privacy came through. 

Gotta make that request that a little quicker, honey.  My typing fingers are pretty darn speedy.  (Plus, who really could keep that experience to themselves?)

Now that the decorations are finished and the tree is in our home instead of the highway, it’s party time.  Since this is a blog, this is a blog party. 

This week, I’m participating in the Caregiving.com HolidayProgressive Blog Party!   It’s a great opportunity to read the blogs of other caregivers as well as those blogs of a few people running businesses which are designed to help caregivers. 

I never tire of mentioning what a fantastic resource Caregiving.com is for caregivers.  It offers a community – no, a family – of support, resources, inspiration and caregiving tips.  If you are a caregiver with a blog or have a business geared toward caregiving, you can join the party too!  Visit caregiving.com for the details to join and how to win great prizes.

Speaking of prizes, at the end of this week I will give away one autographed copy of my book, Forever a Caregiver, to a random visitor/commenter.  This book is for anyone who is a caregiver or who has a family.  J

Now, imagine sitting around our tree (which doesn’t look too bad after having spent some time on the highway), grab some hot chocolate (with a candy cane in it, of course), a couple of cookies and enjoy the party. 

Holidays & Tradition

We love Christmas at our house.  Oh, who am I kidding?  We love all the holidays!  Any excuse to decorate the house and yard (Halloween, Christmas) or cook a big meal (with homemade pecan pie) for the entire family (Thanksgiving) or watch fireworks from the local Futon Shop parking lot (4^th of July and a blog post all its own).

Only the beginning!

We have our holiday traditions although some of them may not be for everyone (it takes a special person to want to watch fireworks from the parking lot of a furniture store).  One of our traditions at Christmas is to decorate the outside of the house  with hundreds of lights, candy canes, snowmen, blow up penguins – you name it, we probably have it and if we don’t it’s because it won’t fit in the yard.

Confession: we have so many holiday decorations that my husband gave me a birthday gift of a shed to store them all in!

I know this isn’t very “green” of me to indulge this tradition but it is fun, it brings us joy to set it all up and brings joy to people driving by our house to look at the decorations.  It even brings the electric company joy (okay, that’s my least favorite part aside from taking them all down).

Yesterday, hubby hauled all the decorations out of the shed (no small feat for someone with chronic back pain) and my daughter and I went to work setting everything up.  Once hubby recovered from the hauling, he helped hang snowflakes from the gutters.  Robert was visiting for the Thanksgiving weekend but, at first, didn’t care to sit outside to watch the transformation.  He thought it would be too cold outside; plus, he had a word search puzzle to finish.

Midway through the decorating, Daughter and I had to make a trip to Target to get more lights (hey, it was needed - this was the year many of the lights decided to not work and there were those cute snowflakes we needed more of).   When we returned, Robert joined us on the porch wearing a warm jacket and watched us blow up penguins, put together a train and install solar candy canes along the sidewalk.  We’re getting more “green” this year after all!

We were thrilled with the result after working on it all day (and we’re not even done yet – there are always more lights to hang!).  Robert looked at the finished product and proclaimed it looked “excellent” which is saying a lot, considering his usual response to anything is a very understated, “that’s nice.”

Daughter, husband and I had to agree: it was pretty excellent!

What traditions do you enjoy with your family?  Anyone else enjoy decorating to the extreme?