#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. 

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