Reluctantly Suburban

Ahh, the holidays…. The most wonderful time of the year.

In yet another telltale example of how I am slowly succumbing to the ways of the suburbs, I found myself longing to bust out the Christmas decor prior to Thanksgiving this year (although still not the day after Halloween, like the boldest in my hood , because Jr needs some recovery time in between giant Inflatable Frankensteins and seizure-inducing jingle-bell-rock lighting displays, yo?)

I also broke down and caved to The Mr’s requests to get a larger tree for The Casa. Even I had to admit that our medium height, thinner profile tree that worked perfectly in the tiny corner of The Treehouse looked a bit sad in our cavernous vaulted-ceiling living room.

So, a week-and-a-half before hosting my first actual traditional Thanksgiving, The Mr. dragged all of the bins of decorations up out of storage, along with the new tree (purchased at 90% off sometime around Valentine’s Day, TYVM,) and I set out to deck the halls.  That tree?  That tree was my Everest.  It is tall, it is heavy, and its directions ?  Non existent.  Also – my cute little condo tree was pre-lit, but not this bad boy – OH NO – this is 100% Keri-illuminated. (Props to my dad who did that every year on the family tree….  and how did my husband disappear SO fast when I mentioned that the lights might be a dude job?  Christmas magic or just a fast car?)

Getting the star on top? Short girl, big ass tree – this shit pretty much actually happened to me:

GIFSoup

Except not even that cool, because I tipped off a stepladder, flopped forward clinging to the tree (still determined to just get the dang star on,) and took it down, becoming hopelessly tangled  in a heap of faux-branches and precariously strung twinkle lights that took a good 10 minutes to extract myself from, at about 11:30 at night.  No one woke up, and I considered just sleeping there until The Mr came downstairs to assist.  But that is NOT the kind of “holiday family story” I want my 3 yr old telling at school.  (He already told his entire class that he was “VERY thankful for Bacon” during their Thanksgiving discussion.)

So, the ginormous tree eventually got the star up on top, and Jr assisted in the decorating of it it by doing all the things that I remember used to piss my mom off when we did them:  hanging 20 ornaments in a 10 inch square section of tree,  hanging ornaments on the afore-mentioned lighting cords instead of the branches (maybe DON’T stab that metal wire hook INTO the cord there, sparky,)  grabbing uber-delicate old ornaments with his “Hulk-smash” preschooler grasp, attempting to eat the ancient foodstuffs from the old-school DIY ornaments of my youth, and on and on until I was frazzled as heck and he was squealing with 3-year-old Christmas glee.  (Cute and understandable, but an untamable force of nature, to be sure.)

The pull of super-sizing the decor hasn’t been contained to the inside of our abode either – Where once I swore I would always be strictly a “tasteful wreath on the door ONLY” kind of gal, I have been sticking silver bows and greenery everywhere on the front of our house.  There are even two spiral, clear light trees staked into our lawn.  (FYI – setting those things up is like stretching a really big spring well beyond where you should be – I let go too soon on the first one and it shot like a rocket half way across the street.  You’ve been warned.)

If we get all True Confessions about it , I would actually like to see a single strand of clear/white lights tracing our roof line.  But I don’t see The Mr heeding the call of his inner Clark Griswold, and Keri draws the line at anything involving a ladder.

Maybe.  But all the neighbors’ lights look so pretty….

Another holiday season in the subdivision is off and running – we also survived another round of the holiday party last night.  This year The Mr made an appearance, I secured seating to eat right away and parked him in it,  and all that ended up coming home in my purse was a goody bag from santa.

Let it never be said that Keri doesn’t learn from experience.  (And next year – The Mr is putting that damn star up on the tree.)