Can't Catch A Break

I don't do Black Friday.  I never have.  Even when we were kids, the day after Thanksgiving was for baking homemade fruitcakes, not shopping.  

We were talking about it yesterday when the kids were here, how Black Friday seems to be dying down a bit -- at least the 4:00AM doorbuster specials are.  I haven't seen them advertised in a while, and Bren mentioned that stores are spreading the Black Friday sales out over the entire month.  That, combined with the increase in online shopping...oh, I'm sure there are still mobs of shoppers, but it's not as bad as it was 10ish or so years ago. 

For me, Friday is for taking down my Fall decorations and putting up my Christmas decorations, and that's what I did, or rather started doing, today.  I said I wasn't going to be in a hurry to get anything done, and I'd just take things at my own pace.  But between cheesy Hallmark movies and football, I made a pretty good start. 

Let me just step outside my story for a moment to tell you that I'm beginning to understand why my maternal grandparents didn't decorate much.  They only had a three foot tree, and as a kid, I wondered why they didn't go all out for Christmas.  Now, I know.  The finished product is so nice, but it's an awful lot of work when you're doing it by yourself.  

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post...

I got all my Fall stuff down and packed away with no problem, but as I was putting it back into the shed, I noticed something had chewed off a corner of my Christmas tree box.  

I was hoping beyond hope that whatever it was -- I suspect a rat-- had only chewed the box and left the actual tree alone, but alas it was not to be.  I quickly spied right in front of that blue tub one of the lights.  It had been completely chewed off. 

"Oh no!"  I wailed in despair as I threw my hands in the air and wept uncontrollably, "Christmas is ruined!  It's RUINED!"  

Ok, I didn't get quite that dramatic, but I did waffle back and forth between throwing the whole tree away and buying a new one and just not putting up a tree at all.  After talking myself off the ledge, I brought the tree inside anyway, and plugged it in just to see if any of the lights would work, and wonder of wonders, most of them did. 

Once I got the whole tree up and turned on, it's not that noticeable.  

It's just that one little space that's out, and I'm pretty sure I have extra lights I can fill it in with.  Truth be told, I never really liked that tree anyway.  The display in the store looked a whole lot better than the one I pulled out of the box.  I was pretty disappointed, because it's from Lowe's and supposed to be a good quality tree.  The ones I'd bought from Walmart looked better than this one.  I kinda wish I'd kept the one Beverly and James gave me when they moved back to Texas.  It was a gorgeous tree, but was way too big for my little living room.  There is no way it would fit in there with my piano in the room now.   I bought this one specifically to have a smaller tree, and it's still a tight fit.  

Still, this is my fourth Christmas with this tree, and once I get it all fluffed and decorated it'll look a bit better.  That will all take place tomorrow, though, and maybe in a year or two, I'll give this one away and get a new one.  In the meantime, I wrapped some electrical tape around the ends of the chewed off wires, just to be on the safe side, and I'll need to spend the next month trying to find a more secure way to store it.  I'm thinking if I can get one of those Rubbermaid type closets without the shelves, I can put the tree and my wreaths into it and they'll be safe there.  

By the way, I debated on trying to fix the broken wires, by stripping the insulations, soldering the wires together and sealing them with shrink wrap, but I didn't want to fool with it.  I may try that after Christmas, but I'm leaving it for now.  

As if all that weren't enough, I'm such a dingbat I can't remember where I put my decorations from year to year, so I take pictures of where my stuff goes.  I'm not one of those people who can do something different every year.  The problem is, I can't find where my photos are.  I was sure I'd uploaded them to a private album on FB, but apparently I didn't.  So, now I'm stressing out because I'm overwhelmed with all these decorations, and I don't know where to put anything.  

My day wasn't a total loss, though.  I got happy mail!  My new candles from my friend Kristine's shop arrived today!  

I wasn't expecting them until Monday, so this was a nice surprise.  

You know what...after all that, I think a piece of pumpkin pie is in order.

Laters.