Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

 

We’re not great on Christmas decorations in our house. 

His Nibs, for example, will have absolutely nothing to do with the whole business, and insists that there’s no need for a tree, no sense in fairy lights, and absolutely no rational explanation for the two foot high Santa I like to stand in the hall, to be knocked over every time the door is opened, or a waggy tailed dog walks past.

I’m not the most Christmassy of souls myself.  It’s not that I don’t like Christmas, I do.  But only when the Christmas season has actually arrived.  I wouldn’t even consider putting the tree up in the last weekend of November, which seems to be quite popular these days. 
And I can’t stand when people start wishing me a merry Christmas from the 8^th of December on.  It’s always a struggle not to shout “It’s not bloody Christmas yet!”
A few years ago, after a few accusations of being grinchy and a general misery arse, I picked 15^th December as the beginning of Christmas.  I decided that’s when I’ll stop whinging about its being too early, and agree that fair enough, it’s Christmas.

So in my little world, Christmas has finally arrived.

 Merry Christmas, everyone.

I decided to put up the tree at the weekend. 

We’ve had our Christmas tree since 1998. 
Yes, it's an artificial one.  I never fancied dragging a real tree up and down the flights of stairs to our various flats. 
And almost as soon as we got the house we got the dogs.  Only a complete moron would put a real tree in a room with our dogs.  I know what  they do to every tree they pass, and I'm not putting one in the house.

Anyway, when I put it up last year and took a step back to admire my handiwork, I was distressed to realise that it had had its day, and it had become completely ragged and sad looking.

By the time I realised this, all the decorations were on, and there was no way I was stripping it again and starting all over. 

So last year was the Christmas of the shabbiest tree I’ve ever seen.

I set about buying a new tree last Thursday, when I was off work but was very much supposed to be involved in another project entirely.

I chose one in a shop near us, but of course they didn’t have the tree I wanted in that branch (pardon the pun).  So I phoned His Nibs and demanded that he purchase the tree in Dublin before he came home.

He rang me back from the shop.

“How big is this fecking tree?” he asked.  “The box is enormous.”

“Seven feet tall”. 

“Seven feet?  Seven feet?  Have you gone mad?  What are we going to do with a seven feet tall tree?”

“Well” I told him, quite sourly “if history is any teacher, I think we can safely say that “We” aren’t going to do anything with it.

I’m fairly sure I’ll put it up, decorate it, make the place nice and festive, and then after Christmas take it all down again and put it back in the attic.”

“Love, how are you going to decorate the top of a seven feet tree?  You’re not seven feet tall.”

“Ah now” I told him reasonably “Sure aren’t I at least five and a half feet tall?  And my arms are definitely eighteen inches long, it’ll be no problem.”

“I don’t think it works like that” he told me.  “Mainly because your arms aren’t growing from the top of your head, so you can’t actually reach seven feet into the air.  But if you want it, fine, you will get it.  I’ll be home soon.”
It never crossed either of our minds that we could use a stepping stool, for some reason.

When he arrived home, on the 12^th of December, three days before my “beginning of Christmas” date, my curiosity overtook me and nothing would satisfy me but to open the box for a look.

Then the tree couldn’t be got back into the box in any sort of reasonable way, so the box was sitting under the stairs with branches poking out and being generally messy and annoying looking.  It was annoying me so much that the following day I had to put the stupid thing up.

His Nibs was in work, and rather than wait for him to return, then have the annual argument about how he should go up into the attic to get the decorations, why he should go up, when he should go up, and so on and so on, that I decided to do it myself.

I was on the second step of the stepladder when I realised that it was very unsteady.  I checked the catch, the legs, the stoppers, but could find no reason for the shaking of the ladder.  It turned out that it was caused by a large woman shaking with fear because of a terror of heights.

The whole business took fecking hours.

I was delighted to find the silver pine cones I bought in the pound shop the first year we lived together, when I was a student. 

I can’t believe that I still have decorations that were bought in an actual pound shop, rather than a Euro Store.

Then I found the gorgeous little silk decorations I bought from a woman in Laos years ago.  Again, it’s my beloved His Nibs who gave me the memory.  I distinctly remember him giving out about how it was only October, and we were on our holidays, quite a long way from home, and still Christmas was invading.  And I told him to belt up or the tiny seller would think he was giving out about her, and stuffed them in my rucksack.

I found the little snowmen I bought in a Christmas market in Brussels the year my sister was so pregnant with my beloved nephew that she couldn’t come home, and His Nibs and I went to see them instead.

All very sentimental, so far.

When I finally, eventually, got what felt like thousands of decorations onto the tree, I discovered that the fairy lights had given up the ghost.  I didn’t get new ones until the following day. 

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get fairy lights around the top of a seven foot tree, when your own husband is standing chanting “I told you so” in the background and you haven't the wit to get a stepping stool?

Finally I was finished.

I haven’t a minutes peace.  I sat down to watch an episode of Frasier yesterday, and I stood up at least seven times in the twenty five minutes it was on.

I’m constantly seeing two of the same bauble, side by side.  Or two purple ones too near each other, or too many baubles on one branch, and none at all on another.

I won’t be happy with it until well after the New Year.  Just in time to take it all down again, as usual.

 

 

Happy Christmas, dear readers.  Thank you so much for reading the blog .

 

 

 

New Suede Shoes

It’s hard to part with an old pal.
I’ve had this one pair of boots for absolutely years.  They’re flat, and they’re a rather weird shade of brown.  They’re nothing special, I suppose.  But for some reason, I’ve loved them since the first day I saw them.

I’ve worn them everywhere.  Not to weddings or fancy do's, they’re flat ankle boots after all, but to work, or with my casual clothes.  I’ve brought them on holiday, and wore them every day in all that snow we had a few years ago.

I always assumed that when they finally gave up the ghost, I’d simply get them re-soled or re-heeled or repaired in some miraculous way that would ensure their immortality.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a pair of boots for so long.

The kind of damage they've now sustained is definitely irreparable.  It hurt a little bit, to finally throw them in the bin.  They've been a friend, those boots.  When I was in trouble in work, or having a row with His Nibs, at least my feet never gave me any trouble, encased as they were in the world's most comfortable shoes.  And I didn't take a single tumble in them, when the compacted ice on Abbey Street was causing people to drop like flies all around me.

I’ve always been a fan of shoes.  Of looking at them and buying them, I mean.  Not necessarily of wearing them, especially if they happen to come with a heel or a pointy toe. 
I like nice shoes, but I’m fond of my comfort too.
And from the day I found those boots, all other footwear had to start vying for my attention like never before.

I’m so fond of them, that for years if I said to His Nibs, usually late, and in a hurry to leave the house,
“Quick, quick, get my boots”

And if he decided to take the opportunity to have a quick little give out about how many shoes I own by saying

“Which boots?  God knows, you have so many, it's hard to know”

I’d yelp

“My boots, my boots, what do you think I mean?  My boots!”

Eventually, he got so used to seeing his wife in the same boots every day that he stopped asking, and just got on with the boot fetching.  
Sometimes he’s a marvellous husband.

One day last week, though, the left one started making a weird sort of puffy noise with every step I took.  I make a good few puffing noises as I walk around anyway, so I didn’t worry.

About two days later, sadly, the boots went to the great cobbler in the sky.  The sole actually split completely in half.  It’s never happened to me before, that I wore a pair of boots so much that they eventually  collapsed.  I could fit my finger in the space between the two halves of the heel.

 

I was distraught.  I got a bit dramatic, actually.  I started thrashing around a bit, and wailing, and wondering what I’d do now. 

Eventually somebody suggested that although I may have loved these ones, there are actually other boots available in the shops.  That God be with the days when I’d be almost vandalising my own shoes, just for an excuse to buy a new pair. 
That I should stop whinging, basically.

I grudgingly went out to look around the shoe shops.  I was unusually downcast. In normal circumstances, there’s nothing I’d like better than wandering around shoe shops, with a leftover birthday voucher in my bag.  But before I went in the door I’d already decided I’d never find a pair of boots to match those I’d lost.

They had a lovely pair of brown leather Chelsea boots, as it goes.  I’m very fond of a nice Chelsea boot.  I was absolutely delighted when they came back into fashion.  They were reduced by 25% and I didn’t even miss my tram, I bought them so fast.

When I got home, I took out one of the boots, and put it on top of its box.  I placed it between myself and the television, where I could glance at it on and off all evening. 

At first I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that I liked the boots as much as I’d thought I did.  That happens to me sometimes.  While I'm in the shop  I love something so much that I believe I can't carry on unless I get it.  Then when I get home I might find that what I've bought isn't actually that special, and I've wasted more money. 

I’m trying to stop throwing money around.  Money I don’t have, and cannot seem to stop myself from spending.  So these days, I look at things, decide I want them, and then leave the shop and don't return for about three days.  If I still like and want it, then I feel justified in buying things and do so without guilt.
I didn’t do that with the boots.  I’m not quite sure why it was so urgent that I get new boots on the actual day the old ones fell apart, but that’s what I did.
To make sure I hadn't made my usual mistake with the boots,  I set them up on the box for a full review and consideration.

I love them.  I don’t know why, but I’m taking it as a good sign, seeing as the last boots I loved as soon as I bought turned out to be my favourite shoes ever.

I wore them going out the following night.  I wasn’t going to a particularly Chelsea boot place, but did I care? I did not.  I even walked home.  I wasn’t in pain.  There was a bit of pinching, but I was well able to put them on again the following morning.

The next day, I sorted out a space for them on the shoe rack under the stairs.

And what did I find?  A really nice pair of brown suede Chelsea boots.  They’re very similar to the leather ones I’d bought on the Tuesday.  And I have absolutely no idea why I’ve never worn them, or why I never even broke them in.  I presume it must be because I loved the old boots so much I didn’t bother.

But they’re not leather, they’re suede.  So that’s not the same thing at all, is it?