It’s the holiday season, and honestly I feel like I’ve outgrown a lot of things. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a family to really dote on for most of this stuff, or maybe because Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday (my faves are a toss-up between Independence Day and New Year’s Eve). Maybe when I have kids of my own I’ll be in the holiday spirit a little bit more and actually get a tree.
But hey. This is supposed to be a happy post.
So anyway, one thing I always think about are my happiest times at Christmas, and all of those go back to when I was in grade school. One of my favorite Christmas memories is when I was about seven years old, and my sister and I took it upon ourselves to decorate the tree. Hilarium ensues.
Now, when I was a little girl, we decorated the house inside and out for Christmas. We had “outside lights” (which were heavier) and “inside lights” (which were lighter, of course). We had an artificial tree that we kept in a box in a small closet in the corner of the basement, which we dubbed the “Christmas closet” because all of our decorations were in there. I loved decorating the tree, my favorite part being applying the tinsel. Yessir! But this year, my sister and I (ages 7 and 8 at the time), thinking we would surprise the family, decided that this year, we’d decorate without them.
And boy, did we decorate.
The tree branches were color-coded, so we knew how to apply the branches to the stem. We wrapped ALL the lights around the tree. We put every bulb and every ornament we could find on the tree. I tossed so much tinsel on there it was almost a tinsel tree. By the time we were done, the tree was leaning to one side, but it was bright and shiny, and we were so proud of ourselves that we exclaimed, “Now that looks GOOD!” and gave each other a hi-five.
Then my oldest sister came home. She was mortified.
She screamed and yelled and ordered us to remove the items from the tree, telling us with certainty that my mother was going to kill us with her bare hands once she saw the tree. Oddly enough, my mom wasn’t too angry. She was actually amused that we’d attempted to help. But then she told us it wasn’t done right and we started over.
Still, I say that was an A for effort. If I ever have kids and they pull a stunt like that, I’d probably keep it up for the entire week so everyone can see it, then take pictures before doing it correctly.
Searching for her inside lights,
Nell
