A few Saturdays ago, our church had a Fall Festival at Kiroli Park. Though it was past Halloween, the kids wore their costumes & enjoyed the merriment while I & many other adults checked our phones for updates on the Alabama/A&M score. While Alabama's one loss may not keep them out of the title game, it's always fantastic to watch them lose, & it somewhat improved what had been an otherwise dismal week, for me personally & for all Americans who value hard work & personal responsibility.
Without further ado, here's Reagan's tribute to Elphaba. Had it been feasible to paint her green, I'd have done it.
Flying high:
Over the course of about a week, I removed the (fake) pumpkins & scarecrow from my front porch in preparation for the decorative transition. Yes, it took me a week. If you're a longtime blog reader, you may recall our tree from last year. A refresher:
We were supposed to close on our house on December 6 of last year. That did not happen. For more details, I wrote a plethora of whiny blog posts about the fiasco that you're welcome to dig up. Bottom line for our tree (which I purchased at Hobby Lobby in giddy anticipation of erecting it in our new home) was that it spent the holidays on the floor in a box. We did use it to corral Reagan, who was learning to walk at the time.
Thus, it was with a year's worth of bottled joy that I took the tree out of the box & began to decorate it during the LSU/Ole Miss game. I was hoping the game would be a blowout so I could devote my attention to the tree, but I should know by now that when it comes to that tree, things don't usually go as planned.
The merriment was halted when I realized we didn't have nearly enough lights for such a tall tree. Our old house had eight foot ceilings that didn't allow for a tall tree, & I love tall Christmas trees. After we closed on our house & I was guaranteed the ten foot ceilings, I bought the tallest tree at Hobby Lobby. Like Elphaba, Christmas trees should be green & soar. Wanting to get the lights on the tree ASAP, I went to Hobby Lobby & bought a few new strands, only to discover (when I got home, of course) that they had white cords. What? Since when have Christmas tree lights been made with anything but green cords? I finally got the lights on the tree Sunday afternoon after a trip to Target (where I opened the boxes to see the green cords for myself before purchasing lights). Due to church & a viewing of Breaking Dawn, Part II Sunday night, no ornaments joined the lights until Monday. I'll now move on with no further comments on the final Twilight film, since I promised.
I love putting ornaments on the Christmas tree. My mom has given Jessica & me ornaments over the years, some with simply the year engraved on them, & others that celebrate our varied obsessions:
From our honeymoon in 2009 . . .
We got married in October, but decided to wait until the Christmas tree would be up in Rockefeller Center before traveling to New York. Good call on our part:
I do love visiting New York (as much as I could possibly love any blue state):
And, what every Christmas tree needs, an array of ornaments issued by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library:
I was a little emotional hanging these ornaments on the tree. Ronald Reagan's smile makes me emotional these days, for a whole list of reasons ranging from my daughter, to the hormones that are sustaining my unborn child, to the fading light of the shining city on a hill Reagan loved so much. I hope I'm being overly dramatic; I suppose time will tell. Trey bought these ornaments the Christmas Reagan was born, but we didn't have a tree that year (I opted out, since I was giving birth & all), & you well know our tree spent last year in a box. So, this was the first time I'd hung them on our tree. I'll hang them every year, until I am physically unable, & continue to pray that one day, his smile won't haunt me.
This is the "New Home" ornament Trey & I received last Christmas. We didn't move in until January 2 of this year, but it was legally ours before 2011 ended, so the ornament is valid.
One of the many "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments of Reagan's:
Reagan's Waterford Crystal "Baby's First Christmas" bottle ornament that I decided would remain safely in its box this year:
Not slated to arrive until the 28th, Dr. Sheppard told me to plan on celebrating Christmas with Reagan, & it's been my experience that Dr. Sheppard is always right. Her first Christmas Eve at the Zeigler's (11 days old):
This was pretty much what we did:
I like to look at the pictures because my memory of this time is a bit hazy. I think the night before this I got four hours of sleep, & I was pretty ecstatic about that:
Christmas Day, 2010:
The walk down memory lane complete, the tree, at long last, made it out of the box & is lit, decorated, & soaring:
For my local readers, if your cable package includes the upper tier Music Choice channels, might I suggest channel 834. It plays nothing but Christmas music, much of it classical, such as The March of the Toys, which I love, love! I have grand plans of sitting on my couch one evening & enjoying the music while I bask in the warm glow of the tree's lights, sip hot chocolate, & revel in the satisfaction of a clean house, clean & folded laundry, & graded papers. I'll let you know how that goes.
AZ
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