Tis The Season

I randomly hum Christmas songs and then just when you think I couldn’t get any more annoying… BAM!!! I break out into a top of my lungs version of ‘Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer’ or the ’12 Days of Christmas’. If you’re lucky, you’ll hear my version of a song as well. Bowels of Holly anyone?

Deck the halls with bowels of holly fa la la la la la la la la!

Am I the only one who does this? Probably not, but I will bet I am the only one who does this year round. Ok, that might be reaching a bit. I definitely know many people who are far too freaking jolly and put my juvenile jubilation to shame. To those overly jovial Christmas crackheads, I come off as Scrooge. Bah-humbug!

Speaking of Scrooge; I don’t miss an opportunity to watch any showing of the 5 million versions. If one is fortunate, I may forget that somewhere on some channel; some form of Scrooge is playing. Lord help my family because I will force them to sit down and enjoy it with me or else. The holidays are about family after all, and I can be very persuasive. LOL The family enjoys watching the shows as much as I do though.

Sunday, we bought our Christmas tree from Home Depot; a tradition that was born when we moved into this much bigger house in 2008. We lived in an apartment complex for too long and although many people enjoy a real tree in their apartments we stuck to plastic. I grew up with a plastic tree and every year we would grow bigger until we were all taller than the top of the tree. It was the livelihood of my redneck childhood.

Our trip to Home Depot was as merry as are all of our family outings. By merry I mean at some point someone is going to shout, someone is going to pout, and someone is most definitely going to be in tears. (Usually, me.) So, my son wanted to get a dark green tree. My husband had his heart set on an 8/9-foot Balsam fir. My daughter had no idea what she wanted. But finally, with the help of the greatest mom on the planet (Umm, that would be me, duh.) the kids picked out a lovely 8-foot White Pine tree. The husband was ecstatic because he had chosen a $65 tree and the White Pine was a sweet $18. *Ding ding ding we have a winner here folks!* I am a little nervous and “You get what you pay for” is dancing like sugar plums in my head but, so far we love it.

Christmas 2011 Copyrighted-InJensMind

My grandparent’s (on my mom’s side) always had a real tree. Well, I think they did, I only visited them every other Christmas so I’m not sure. The funny thing is I have no recollection of many things from my childhood, except for some of the really horrible things. Wow, I need to work on recovering my happy memories. Ah memories.

Anyway, I digress. One year my grandparents had decorated the entire tree in stuffed animals. Grandpa had a morning habit of going up to the local coffee shop in Mt. Morris, MI every morning for coffee. I know what you are thinking and no, I couldn’t have worded that sentence without saying coffee twice. *Tee-hee* Anyway, grandpa would play the claw game (wait for it) and he had this streak of awesome luck where he won loads of stuffed animals. So like any other person in my weird as all get out family, he put them on the tree. It was a child’s dream, I know because I am telling you about it hence, I loved it enough to remember it.

In my children’s lifetime; they have enjoyed such colored trees as green, white, and pink. Yes, one year I made the men in my house endure the tiny tacky pink plastic tabletop tree. My son, now 13 years old, asked me to buy another pink tree this year. I love his enthusiasm but, he will have to wait until next year when I pull off the ultimate Skittles Christmas. Taste the rainbow, bitches! LOL I jest, I jest!

A few years ago, ok more like 9-10 years ago, my husband and I decided to flip our white plastic tree upside down and hang it from the ceiling. Right now as I write this, I am mad that I never took pictures of it. Argh! That was the year I found out that my Scrinch of a husband was really Santa’s number 1 elf in disguise.

Our kids; 4 and 6 years old, sat with me in amazement at their father hanging up every single Christmas decoration that we owned. By the time he was done, you would have sworn that you were smack dab in the middle of the North Pole. Several years later we allowed him to decorate again and before long it looked as if Rudolph had been binge eating the decorations again and then vomited them all over the ceiling and walls. Why yes, I do have a picture for that one.

Christmas 2006 Copyrighted-InJensMind

Well what do you use for your Christmas tree; paper or plastic? Err, I mean real or plastic?