Verbal Excursions

This year was the first year that my son (who is now thirteen) would not be with me for Christmas day. This is, historically, the only holiday I have ever been good at celebrating. You might not always get a birthday party in this house, but, By Golly! Christmas is down right picturesque… so I was feeling a bit down that he wouldn’t be here on the actual day, and vowed to make our time together the weekend before an absolute Hallmark-card event.

I should know better by now than to have expectations for anything, right? Long story short, due to inclement weather and a series of crazy happenstance, the weekend before Christmas found me sans the traditional family ornaments (or any kind of holiday decoration, for that matter), with no tree, and flat broke. My plans to bake special gingerbread for our own made-from-scratch gingerbread house went awry… etc etc etc. But my son, being the wonderful person he is, rolled with it. He expressed that he would rather build our own tree than take another one from nature, and that, as long as we still built a gingerbread house, that would be cool.

So, we built this incredible art-deco tree out of my coat rack, and some garland we bought for three bucks.

Much love to my friend Matthew, who graciously contributed the use of the holiday ornaments which were a gift from his mother (several of which sported his awesome elementary school photos). And the three of us shared the best belly laugh of the year, when we attempted (and failed horribly) to decorate and assemble a store-bought gingerbread house. I don’t know how the hell anyone ever gets those walls to stick together – but we made a diligent four hour effort, before ending up with a house that looked like it had been stepped on by a giant. A giant who had also taken a bite out of the roof.

It was probably the best Christmas celebration I have ever had – and it was definitely a much-needed reminder not to take things too seriously.