Yuletide Decorating

We had a housework weekend. I can almost see my living room carpet.

Actually, I would prefer not to see living room carpet. I have a strong anti-carpet bias. The only use I have for the stuff is as a scratching post for the cats. But at least the boxes and clutter are mostly cleaned up. I just have to drag the cedar chest from living room to bedroom, and get the stupid casters off it, and then the last piece of furniture from Grandmaman which will need absorption will be the big Victorian rocker.

Maman suggested that the rocker go in the front bedroom, which we use as a guestroom. The only trouble with that is that I would have to find a place to put the Eastlake rocker which is already in there. ARGH. You know, I didn't set out to collect 19th-century rocking chairs, but now I have three.

The tree is up and the cedar roping is twined with lights. All the interior lights are small and white -- what the British call 'fairy lights.' This is because I don't care for big lights and multi-coloured ones detract from the ornaments, or so I think. My small collection of ornaments tends toward the elaborate glass polonaise type. Most of them are dogs; a few are birds or other wild creatures. The traditional treetopper of my childhood was a vermeil snowflake which Maman still has; my little tree gets a blue glass bird clipped to the top. Vermeil snowflakes are not in my budget this year.

The tree is artificial. This is in part because I had horrible childhood allergies, and in part because some tree-worshiping gene in my DNA sequence objects to cutting down a perfectly good fir so it can die decoratively in my house.

One year, after I was in graduate school but before Daddy died, he and I were tasked with setting up the familial tree. It had gotten dusty in its summer quarters and I had a huge, ugly reaction to the dust. I went upstairs to take meds and wash my face and hands. When I came downstairs, Daddy was attacking the tree bits with the Electrolux. It was a sight.

I'm still at work and need to get out of here. I collected the distilled suffering (research papers) of my current crop of 16-year-olds today. It is good to be the soul crusher.

verso - recto