It’s that time again

An article by Don Quixote    8 Comments

It’s Ground Hogs Day… again.

Okay, so it’s not really Ground Hogs Day, but it’s that time of year once again where lights start going up on the roofs of neighborhood homes, plastic reindeer get put out on lawns and waves are people are out spending money on gifts for Christmas.

I don’t know that I’m much of a holiday guy.

Don’t get my wrong. I love my family, but I absolutely cannot stand family gatherings. The idea of lots of noisy people in a small space just gives me a headache thinking about it. I’m not a big fan of all the superficial conversation, the lack of a common bond with in-laws, and all the chaos that goes with it.

I’m more of a quite controlled setting guy. Chaos in small doses. I have enough going in my normal life that when I get together with friends and family I need calm.

I’m also terrible with celebrating holidays in general with others. I don’t send Christmas cards (not even to my family). I don’t buy gifts for anyone else besides the boys, Michelle and for Kara (on behalf of the boys). I don’t send birthday cards. That having been said though I do it universally. I’m an equal opportunity ignorer.

However that all having been said, when I do something though, I go whole hog (ground hog that is). I spend way too much on the kids; way too much on Michelle. What can I say though? I like it. I love buying things for others like that. My biggest down fall with that is once I’ve found the perfect gifts its pure torture having to wait a month (sometimes 3 or 4) to give them. It’s all madness.

I originally had no intention of writing any of that. I’m not quite sure where it all came from, but there you have it.

What I had originally meant to write about was it was time to put up the Christmas tree.

The first year I waited until December 20th to put it up. It was the first year we had the tree (it’s an artificial one, but I’ll get to that in a bit) I got it put together but I didn’t have the ladder I needed. The second year I started a few weeks earlier, but still way late. As a result I end up keeping the tree around well into January because dang it, I put a lot of work into it.

See we have 24 foot vaulted ceilings in the living room (I know, I lead a rough life) and so the idea of sticking a 6 foot tree in there is humorous. Michelle decided that we needed a big tree; a 12 footer. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve a religious watcher of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I’ve seen the horror that large life tree can do. The sap alone would ruin me. Not only that how would I get it into the house and back out when we were done. I’d have to get mounting anchors and tie the thing down to the walls for safety sake.

We always had a real tree growing up and it was hard for me to get used to the idea of an artificial one. But to be honest. I like it. No watering. No sap. However I do miss the smell.

Any who, it’s that time of the year again. Time to rearrange the living room and pull out the monster boxes that contain the Christmas tree. Time to get out all the decorations. Time to borrow a 12 foot ladder from our neighbors.

Funny little side story. Last year I decided that I didn’t need to get a big ladder to do this. I had this brilliant idea that I would decorate the tree in two pieces and once the top was ready I would mount a 6 foot ladder and place the 6 foot section (fully decorated) on top. Not one of my brightest moments. Nothing like trying to hold a fully decorated 6 foot tree in one hand and hold onto a ladder and not kill yourself. How I didn’t drop that thing or loose the star on top (which was crooked the whole season by the way) I will never know.

Ah well, ’tis the season. Deck the halls and all that crap.

(Oh as a side note, it’s all that time again to change the theme to something more winter like.)