notice how i never have a mood?


well my pretties, it's christmas time again. a pure d pain in my side because that means it's time to decorate. decorating is always a stinkin production. something that should take only a couple of hours ususally takes the whole damn day.

it all started out well enough, the iceback, a morning person, was thrilled that the southern bell, a vampire, had drug her ass out of bed by eight. the girl and the boy were going to be gone all day, and we planned on getting all the basics done so the girl could decorate the tree when she got home. the boy isn't into decorating anymore, well, he never really was, but he promised to hang with us while we did.

mr. organization--staging area--pulled all the boxes from storage and began separating the outside from the inside stuff.

everything was looking good as he plugged in tree lights to see just how many we had. the girl originally had wanted a live tree. i reminded her of the year that we bought a live tree that dried out to such prickly, painful mess that we left it sitting in our living room with the lights still on it until March when we finally dragged the whole thing, lights and all, out to the garbage. so instead, and trying to give me a break, she went out and bought a pre-lit artificial one which has been sitting in our living room for nearly a week.

however, since we now had an extra, smaller tree, mark decided we'd should place it in our front window for the dog. yep, you heard me, the dog has his own tree. but it also rounds out our outside decorations, as the front window is surrounded by icicle lights.

but anyway, i digress, as usual.

once again, i was stringing lights...ugh. i did the banister and the front window tree while mark tried to get all his icicles together. this is where the "fun" turned ugly. tree lights that had worked when he checked them initially, now weren't lighting up the entire length. he was having the same problem with the icicles.

merry fucking christmas, ho ho ho. the cussing, throwing, stomping and pouting began. i reminded him, in my most sarcastic voice, "this is why i love christmas."

so scraping a few bucks together, we braved the cold rain to walk to eckerd's for more icicles and an extra box of blue balls (oops, forgive me, the boy insists i should say blue ornaments).

all in all, it took us all damn day.

eventually, the kids came home, and the girl hung ornaments, tho i had to do the bows and ribbons on both trees and i'm so particular, that when she leaves, i rearrange some of her ornaments.

now my tree is a designer tree. years ago my mom had stumbled into a store and say a tree all trimmed in silver. even the presents were wrapped in silver paper, accented with her favorite color mauve.

the iceback loved the monochromatic tree. when mom switched her color scheme to mauve and silver (how the hell she found mauve lights, i'll never know) she gave us a lot of her ornaments and trimmings.

we lived with the silver decked tree for years, but a few years ago we decided to add some color, especially since our living room walls are blue. so my tree is silver lights and "tinsel"(beads and snowflakes) with silver and blue ornaments. i then put a big bow at the top and drape three long strands of blue ribbon from top to bottom.

likewise, all my presents MUST be done in blue or silver paper, with blue or silver bows. it all has to coordinate, and even now, i'm a little distressed because my blue ornaments aren't the same blue as my ribbon. i bought three rolls of this ribbon last year(or the year before) and first two rolls of ribbon has a kind of irredescent quality to it, while the last roll(which went on the tree this year) doesn't. and it's driving me friggin crazy. CRAZY, i tell you.

AND, leave it to mark's mom and her cheap ass by the bulk crappy wrapping paper to throw my scheme off every year. i do believe i've rewrapped a few of her gifts, and hidden the others so they don't clash. she poo-poos my designer tree, but what do you expect from a woman who drags an old couch out onto the front lawn for the family to hang out on.

see? it's all too much for me. maybe i have too much freakin time on my hands, maybe my mom has made me a little too anal about all of this with her high-falutin taste, but damn...

christmas just stresses me out...i'm a very very weak person.

and i haven't even started shopping yet. whoa, that should be fun, yeah?