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Belated Holiday Post
Jan. 4th, 2008 08:20 amI'm awake too early on a Friday, waiting for the Sears guy to come and fix our dryer. Not sure what's wrong with it. Probably just some sort of connection. Worked fine on minute, then not the next. Basically, unless I sit and hold down the start button, it doesn't run. I tried taping the button down, of course, but that didn't work. Hopefully it'll be an easy and cheap fix. I'm running out of clean clothes, and trying to hold out from doing the laundromat thing.
So, anyway, that leaves me with some time, and since I'm still having trouble getting Adobe to load some files I need to work on, I thought I'd come here.
I wanted to make a post about our holiday decorations this year. Silly thing, I suppose, but I'm kinda sentimental about it.
As some of you may recall, our holiday decorations (with few exceptions, and among other things) were inadvertently thrown away by our apartment complex, do to a snafu with their records as to which storage unit I had. So, we had no tree any more. The sad part is, I hadn't been able to put up my tree since I moved down here. There was simply no place to put it in any apartment we had. (This is partially due to my own stubbornness, as I insist trees must go in front of a window. Even so, that would have only allowed one other time.) This apartment, however, has the perfect setup for putting up a tree. Until this past year, the place hasn't been settled enough to consider adding the additional clutter of holiday decorations, but I was especially bummed when I went to get the stuff out of storage, 'cause the apartment was finally ready. Anyway, thanks to the wonder of Freecycle, we ended up with a tree and lights for this year. We actually got around to putting it up in a timely manner, switching the usual mantel decorations with my Nativity Set, listening to Christmas music, and putting out what few general decorations had survived the mishap. We had a really good time doing it, evoking all the usual memories of Christmas past, doing this sort of thing with our families of origin, and all the childhood wonder that went with all of it.
Technically,
BlckwngdOrcl have shared 6 Christmases together (including this one), but in many ways, this seemed like our first. We fumbled with the pieces of the "new" tree, unfamiliar with how it was put together, and I was sad, partially because I had "known" my old tree, and it had been an old friend for the holidays, and partially simply because my old tree had been of very high quality and this one ...wasn't. Even so, we laughed as we put it together, joking about our "Charlie Brown tree", noting how some of the branches were strangely bent, and how the top of the tree had been repaired with some sort of foamy duct tape-like stuff, and how it made the tree crooked.
The tree had come with lights, but only a few of them actually lit up. We went ahead and put all of them on, and ended up with a tree lit only halfway, at the bottom. We laughed about this, a little sad, but somehow, it seemed fitting, like we were starting out as newlyweds, without a lot of resources, but doing the best we could. Which, sadly, after this long, is still pretty true. We hung what few ornaments we had. Luckily, most of the few we had were things that we either really liked or had picked out ourselves. This is the upside of having lost our ornaments - everything now can truly reflect who WE are. So, ornaments of note were a Star Trek OS Galileo (sp?) ornament, a Star Wars X-Wing Fighter, and a stylized bottle cap we had purchased when we went to the World of Coke on our anniversary a few years back. Over the holiday season, we also bought a little Starbucks mug, and a gourd ornament decorated with a cat from Ten Thousand Villages. I actually look forward to getting more as we go along. I even tried to do the popcorn/cranberry strand thing, but only got a little ways. I hadn't realized what a pain in the ass it was. :)
Anyway, my parents, who'd, of course, been in on the whole thing since my stuff was thrown out, were of course, called to discuss how the new tree was working out, and I laughingly told them about our tree, with all its foibles. A few days later, I came home to a package on the doorstep, which included lights (that worked!), this really cool little (rein)deer made out of twigs, some basic ornaments (glass balls and Santas) and a few house-y decorations. I was really touched by that. We'd actually been perfectly happy with our silly little tree, but I had to admit that, once we got the new lights on, and had a few more decorations up, it really looked good, more like Christmas.
It was sad to take everything down the other day. The nativity set is still up, and the decorative towels (mostly because I can't wash them to put them away till the dryer is fixed - as an aside, I just got a call from the repairman, who's on his way... apparently, based on what I've said, he's sure it's the control panel... the cost of which is roughly the cost of a new basic-model dryer... I told him to go ahead and fix it... I figure if it's the same money, I'd just as soon save myself the trouble of shopping/shipping/etc.... plus, I'm pretty sure we bought more than a basic model), but everything else has been packed up and put in the closet.
There was so much sweetness about this Christmas. The joy of putting up decorations together, the shared "hardship" of the scanty nature of them, the generosity of my parents... I look back on it all with a humbled joy.
So, anyway, that leaves me with some time, and since I'm still having trouble getting Adobe to load some files I need to work on, I thought I'd come here.
I wanted to make a post about our holiday decorations this year. Silly thing, I suppose, but I'm kinda sentimental about it.
As some of you may recall, our holiday decorations (with few exceptions, and among other things) were inadvertently thrown away by our apartment complex, do to a snafu with their records as to which storage unit I had. So, we had no tree any more. The sad part is, I hadn't been able to put up my tree since I moved down here. There was simply no place to put it in any apartment we had. (This is partially due to my own stubbornness, as I insist trees must go in front of a window. Even so, that would have only allowed one other time.) This apartment, however, has the perfect setup for putting up a tree. Until this past year, the place hasn't been settled enough to consider adding the additional clutter of holiday decorations, but I was especially bummed when I went to get the stuff out of storage, 'cause the apartment was finally ready. Anyway, thanks to the wonder of Freecycle, we ended up with a tree and lights for this year. We actually got around to putting it up in a timely manner, switching the usual mantel decorations with my Nativity Set, listening to Christmas music, and putting out what few general decorations had survived the mishap. We had a really good time doing it, evoking all the usual memories of Christmas past, doing this sort of thing with our families of origin, and all the childhood wonder that went with all of it.
Technically,
BlckwngdOrcl have shared 6 Christmases together (including this one), but in many ways, this seemed like our first. We fumbled with the pieces of the "new" tree, unfamiliar with how it was put together, and I was sad, partially because I had "known" my old tree, and it had been an old friend for the holidays, and partially simply because my old tree had been of very high quality and this one ...wasn't. Even so, we laughed as we put it together, joking about our "Charlie Brown tree", noting how some of the branches were strangely bent, and how the top of the tree had been repaired with some sort of foamy duct tape-like stuff, and how it made the tree crooked. The tree had come with lights, but only a few of them actually lit up. We went ahead and put all of them on, and ended up with a tree lit only halfway, at the bottom. We laughed about this, a little sad, but somehow, it seemed fitting, like we were starting out as newlyweds, without a lot of resources, but doing the best we could. Which, sadly, after this long, is still pretty true. We hung what few ornaments we had. Luckily, most of the few we had were things that we either really liked or had picked out ourselves. This is the upside of having lost our ornaments - everything now can truly reflect who WE are. So, ornaments of note were a Star Trek OS Galileo (sp?) ornament, a Star Wars X-Wing Fighter, and a stylized bottle cap we had purchased when we went to the World of Coke on our anniversary a few years back. Over the holiday season, we also bought a little Starbucks mug, and a gourd ornament decorated with a cat from Ten Thousand Villages. I actually look forward to getting more as we go along. I even tried to do the popcorn/cranberry strand thing, but only got a little ways. I hadn't realized what a pain in the ass it was. :)
Anyway, my parents, who'd, of course, been in on the whole thing since my stuff was thrown out, were of course, called to discuss how the new tree was working out, and I laughingly told them about our tree, with all its foibles. A few days later, I came home to a package on the doorstep, which included lights (that worked!), this really cool little (rein)deer made out of twigs, some basic ornaments (glass balls and Santas) and a few house-y decorations. I was really touched by that. We'd actually been perfectly happy with our silly little tree, but I had to admit that, once we got the new lights on, and had a few more decorations up, it really looked good, more like Christmas.
It was sad to take everything down the other day. The nativity set is still up, and the decorative towels (mostly because I can't wash them to put them away till the dryer is fixed - as an aside, I just got a call from the repairman, who's on his way... apparently, based on what I've said, he's sure it's the control panel... the cost of which is roughly the cost of a new basic-model dryer... I told him to go ahead and fix it... I figure if it's the same money, I'd just as soon save myself the trouble of shopping/shipping/etc.... plus, I'm pretty sure we bought more than a basic model), but everything else has been packed up and put in the closet.
There was so much sweetness about this Christmas. The joy of putting up decorations together, the shared "hardship" of the scanty nature of them, the generosity of my parents... I look back on it all with a humbled joy.
