Mrs. Grinch

I have been very Grinch like so far this month. This afternoon I really felt like Mr. Grinch, except it was when his heart grew three times its size. Having Forrest home after eleven days missing is a treat! And then we decorated outside and put up our three Christmas trees. Yes, a Christmas hater has three trees inside. I had a cute tree in college, which became Trinks when she was old enough. This year I sprang for a nice sized one for Scott's room. And we have my sister's old tree in the office.

Back in the day, we used to go out in the back of my grandparents farm on THE COLDEST day of the winter and wander around until we found the perfect tree. Then we would chop it down and drag it back to the car. Then, it would have to be evened out, and watered regularly. My sister and I had our own tree, possibly so we could keep all the hideous "store bought" ornaments away from the handmade ornaments. My mother has a beautiful felt and sequin Nativity Character ornament set that a secret Santa made for her one year back in the 70s. One year we took styrofoam ornaments and stabbed them with pins and sequins to make bizarre (mine) and beautiful (my mother's and sister's) ornaments. So the concept of separate trees was nothing new to me. What changed as I got older was a dislike of real trees. They give me hives and need water. I've already admitted I can't even take a vitamin every day, so watering a tree ain't gonna happen!

As I type, I see what a great job the kids did on the tree. And I see how short they are. A good two feet at the top is naked. S was so excited when we lit the tree. He squealed and clapped his hands. Trinks was able to help me in the attic - ok I made up things to do up there because she really wanted to help me bring the boxes down. She was also able to help put the tree together and string lights. This year I set up the remote for the lights. Nope - I have no use for the remote, but my mom got it for me last year and it is really fun to use it. The kids made the tree go on and off so many times it looked like we had blinking lights.

So we had a good weekend. The only major problem we ran into was S hates both types of cookies I made. So he inhaled two out of three of my pears. The third was safely stowed in my lunch bag. Tomorrow I'll make him chocolate chocolate chip. YUM!