The spirit of the grinch invaded our Christmas tree this year. Our saga began the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the day we traditionally decorate. It’s early, yes, but I like to get the tree and garland up so there’s extra light in the house, a mood-booster as the nights grow longer.
But our pre-lit tree, such a clever idea some years ago when first purchased, was a major disappointment as about 1/3 of the lights didn’t work. Hiram was bummed, so I tried to help by volunteering to pick up lights and string them on the bad branches. The little trick worked like a charm and we finished decorating. All was well for a week until some of the other pre-lit branches quit working.
Now, our tree is a blotchily lit spectacle.
My inner grinch rises when I look at it, but there’s no time to take off decorations, string more lights, and replace the ornaments. Of course, some beautifully wrapped presents – or any presents, for that matter – would have distracted attention away from the tree. To be perfectly accurate, there was one present beneath its untwinkling boughs. Hiram brought it home last week and plopped it down, a wide open, unwrapped box. “It’s for you,” he explained, “don’t look inside. When I objected to being home alone all day tempted by an open box, he sealed it shut with a single piece of masking tape.
Then he asked, “Is that better?”
Yesterday, I finished the Christmas shopping. One store offered free gift wrap, so I scored big there and shoved those packages under the tree as soon as I got home. Then I placed a package of nicely coordinated papers, stickers, notes, and ribbon purchased at Target next to the unwrapped box. Usually, I’m too cheap to buy pretty paper, preferring to shop the after Christmas sales and then forget where I put the paper by the time the next Christmas rolls around. I thought the pretty paper would be good motivation to wrap presents while watching Christmas specials on TV. Except our TV only gets one channel. So I’ll watch my Netflix DVD instead.
House, Season 2.
The grinch made flesh, if ever there was one. Should be quite the present-wrapping party in our living room tonight. Coordinated paper, life-threatening diseases, tree lights dying by the hour, and a pill-popping doctor diagnosing what’s wrong with the world.
Anybody want to come and join the fun?
