Reason #90 Why writing takes so long
#90 Out of control Christmas decorations
Writers are a distractible lot by nature. Between flighty muses and wild, vorpal plot bunnies rampaging about, it is difficult to focus on keeping hands on keyboards, parked in our chairs. The holiday season makes that even more difficult–not that it should be a surprise to anyone to hear that. That is especially true when said writer likes to decorate.
I try very hard not to overdo Christmas decorations at our house. We do not pull out the tree and garland until after Thanksgiving–often the day after, but that counts, right? I don’t like to put the guys up on high ladders, so anything that can’t be reached from the basic utility ladder–like the second story roofline–is off limits for decorations.
That being said, I love decorating for Christmas. Growing up, my mother hated the to-do and avoided everything that she could. Do I overcompensate for that. Well, maybe, just a little–maybe.
Is it really that outlandish that I have two different sets of Christmas ornaments for the big tree? I have my pretty, sentimental and largely breakable ornaments for ‘safe’ years and I have a big box of red and gold plastic ornaments that are nigh on unbreakable–thus they are used for ‘unsafe’ years.
What is an unsafe year? Kitten, puppy and baby years are unsafe years. Have you ever seen what a kitten can do to a Christmas tree? A little 5 lb. feline can fell a 6 ft. tree in a matter of moments. That event is bad enough, but when you add a slew of broken glass to that, ah, no thanks. Thus we have unbreakable ornaments.
They make my two-year old grandson very happy as well. He literally quivered with excitement when I opened the box of “balls!!!” and showed him how to put them on the tree. Many hours of fun were had putting on, taking off, and rearranging “balls!!!” on the tree.
Oh, yeah, and putting them on the cats.
Really, who could blame him for trying? The felines were just sitting there, watching the festivities, asking to be included, right? Who could say no to those funny, fuzzy little faces.
I certainly couldn’t. So then, the writing must wait while I pick out the correct ornament for each cat. It seems a little surprising that I have to convince each one that he wants to be decorated. He asked for it–quite clearly. But then again, we’re dealing with cats, right?
So, I’ll get back to writing that chapter as soon as all the cats are properly decorated.
Aaaahhh! That was such a cute photo. I mean… yeah, [s]he looked like [s]he wanted to be decorated. I mean, it’s Christmas. Y’got to dress the season. LOL! What fun. I’ve heard of people putting a fence… yeah, I said that… a fence [little white picket] around their tree to protect it from crawlers, toddlers and puppies. Now a cat would not be deterred by such an offensive thing as a fence. So apparently they didn’t have cats. Anyway, thanks for the chuckle. I hope this becomes a ‘100 Reasons Why Writing Takes So Long’ story/novella/bok. This would be a cute little book to encourage writers as you share sage advice. Unless you are prevented from writing it by reason 101. Blessings and Happy New Year.
I actually have two sets of ornaments, my sentimental breakable ones and a big bin of cheap plastic one and red velvet bows labeled kittens and babies. We put up those the years that we have kittens or babies around. This year we have a 2 year old grandbaby and a 2 year old cat who is still a kitten at heart, so they both really needed those.
I am thinking this will eventually become a 100 reasons book. It may take a little while to get there though. 😉
Ha ha! Love it! I saw a video the other week where the tree was in a cage but still the cats managed to find a way to get at the baubles and the string of lights!
I must admit that I don’t decorate the house as much as I used to. Saying that, I do love seeing other people’s.
my daughters tree in Australia was up before December 1st and as we were Skyping her 3 year old was dragging a stool round trying to reach the chocolates while her 5 year old was trying to defend them! Ah the joy!
I do hope your cats stay decorated until twelfth night?
🙂
🙂
Definitely until 12th night! But alas it is now time to take it all down. That’s always a little sad to me.