Our tree has arrived, and ah, the pine smells fine!
With Sir Renaissance away on business this week, I set my mind to be busy so I wouldn’t miss him so much (or notice the absence of his help at bath time). It was decidedly time to prepare for Christmas – the purchase of some small gifts, the placement of basic decorations, and the debut of a list for our holiday dinner. The decorations began with a set of lights bought for our beautiful french windows in the shape of clear leaves, clustered in bunches of three. As a surprise for Young Lady and Young Knight upon their return from school, I reached up on a chair, on my tippy-toes, to tape the lights around the window frame and set them aglow. Boy those french windows are tall, and at my height I could just clear the window and tape them right above onto the door frame.
But I forgot that french windows open inwards from the middle, like doors. And I have to open them day and night in order to open and close the shutters. And just clearing the window to tape the lights on is not enough, I found, when the cluster of leaves hang right into the window itself. So now morning and night, I balance precariously on tippy-toe, on a chair that I inevitably have to step down from and adjust because I’ve placed it too close to the window (so can’t open it) or too far from the window (so can’t reach the cluster of lights to clear them out of the way). I think I have a stepladder somewhere to adjust the lights permanently out of reach, but I confess to be a living example of the Mexican proverb: “The lazy man always works double”.
French primary kids have no school Wednesdays, so after I took Young Lady and Young Knight ice skating, we decided to spend some time getting festive. Considering that all of our decorations are packed away somewhere in anticipation of the completed work (estimated deadline for everything mid-October 2009; revised estimate for 2 projects out of 4 – just in time for Christmas), we had to begin by making our own decorations.
I took some pretty green patterned card-stock and folded it in half and drew a Christmas tree on half of one, which I cut out and then traced the same pattern on the other 3 papers. With four little Christmas trees in front of them, Young Lady and Big Boy went crazy with a variety of stickers, chatting excitedly all the while. And what do you know! When I cut the middles to place one tree on top of another – perpendicular like a pinwheel – it made two of the prettiest little trees that stood up on their own. I felt like such a model mother for doing a craft with them instead of flipping on the television. Well, that is until the model way I started screaming at them “don’t touch it! don’t touch it! it’ll fall down! we’re decorating!!!!!” sending them scurrying off (probably to the television).
Swept along by the holiday fever, I got the tree yesterday. With little craft trees on our table as an incentive and the kids getting antsy for things to look a lot like Christmas, I thought – now is the time to order our tree, and then we won’t waste time getting it on Saturday. I found “the” tree at the florist located in the town’s marketplace. It was short and plump with a long skinny 4-pronged branch for a head, and they delivered for free! The florist was nice and also gave us a hideous mini spray-painted tree with a plastic santa that the children just love, and an amaryllis for me. I tried not to notice the even bigger trees for 20 euros less at the local supermarket – they did not come with plastic santas, and I bet they did not deliver for free. In any case, our plump little tree fits like a charm in our empty big-gaping-holed living room.
Finally, to close the week properly, I bought a new vinyl tablecloth for the rough outdoor table with metal legs that we’ve been using to eat on. The wood is too rough to wipe down with a sponge after meals, and the cloth tablecloth I bought lasts all of about one meal with this messy family of mine. So that is my latest addition to the holiday spirit since it’s somewhat christmasy-looking. It’s a nice beige vinyl one patterned with various green plants, and its chemical smell is only partially offset by the pine. But it does go nicely with the plump little tree, the sprayed santa tree, the two card-stock craft trees and the big-gaping-holed living room rug.
And the best part of the week’s festivities is that the house is clean – I kept it clean all week, in spite of being solo with three young children. I’m quite proud of myself. So when Sir comes home, in addition to the chorus of “Papa! Papa” (and in spite of the chagrin he will feel when he tries to close the shutters), he will be agreeably surprised by a tidy house, the model children, and beginnings of the Christmas fever of which he made a timely escape.
With all this evidence of my domestic industry, he won’t be able to accuse me of pining away!
* This post originally appeared in my former blog, Perfect Welcome, and may contain some modifications or discrepancies in the names or comments.
