Monday, Dec. 08, 2003 - 9:21 a.m.
Greetings,
No doubt lots of people decorated for Christmas over this past weekend. Never one to buck a trend, I also decorated. It was an epic job taking place over a span of 12 hours. Well, I exaggerate. The decorating part took about half an hour, but cleaning Crescentwood in preparation for this half hour took a long, long, long time.
(Just like reading the rest of this entry will….)
Before I even get to Saturday, I would like to chronicle Friday night since it was a peaceful, charming sort of night – the kind your mother would have wished for you when she was looking down at you in your cradle right when you came home from the hospital.
“Dear,” she would have whispered, bending closer to tuck in your receiving blanket tenderly. “Some day, years from now, I hope you have a Friday night that’s peaceful and charming filled with candlelight and a bath and maybe even a movie. Because you are *that* special to me. You are Mommy’s Little Angel!”
Tommy found me in the lobby at work reading an Agatha Christie while listening to modern Christmas carols. My favorite, the Waitresses singing, “Christmas Wrapping” (Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! But I think I’ll miss this one this year!”) I was blasted simultaneously back into the 80s and (thanks to Agatha Christie) the 30s. Who needs a Time Machine?
We went home and he closed himself off his Chamber while I bustled about straightening up Crescentwood and running myself a bubble bath.
Next door neighbors were bringing in some large appliance or other and instead of using the front door, used the back door instead, which meant lots of tromping feet up and down the alley between the houses and screeching box against the sides of the gate, etc.
Plus, the bathwater was cold and I was cranky. So I donned my dreaded caftan and swirled out into the kitchen to prepare a scrumptious feast – well, okay, Hamburger Helper.
I sacked out on the couch and laughed my ass off at Betty White in “Lake Placid”.
Saturday:
I slept entirely too late (10 a.m.) and made some Maple Harvest coffee for breakfast while contemplating my day. No caftan night on the schedule, so why not take all day to clean the place. Starting with my walk-in closet.
So, that’s just what I did. I marched in there, moved a ton of stuff out into the bedroom and then discovered a cache of old printed out e-mail letters from me to John and John to me and some from Tom to us both. So I had to settle down and read them naturally.
This, Mister Jawhn, is what I am reduced to since you haven’t updated your LJ in a while. Reading old e-mail on the floor of my closet in my bathrobe. Isn’t that just the most pathetic thing you ever heard?
Eventually the closet did get cleaned up and even Thomas approved of the neat appearance. It just seemed like 4 hours to clean a closet that wasn’t even that trashed might have been a bit excessive.
I had this nagging feeling that I wished I were caftaning that night and lo and behold when I read my e-mail, Collinwood had sent out a Red Alert advising me that dinner plans had been canceled due to the blizzard that socked in most of New England and therefore, did I want to caftan?
Hell yes! You betcha! So I called Collinwood, made out a rushed schedule, printed it out, stuck it up on the fridge and flew into a frenzy of cleaning and decorating that took me up until 8 p.m.
But the end results were worth it.
Kitchen: Mr. and Mrs. Snowman Spoonholder, a lovely festive potholder with potpourri inside of it and a cute little dark green hand towel with a boy on a sled buttoned to the oven door handle.
Dining room: Christmas house tea light burner on the wine bar, vanilla cinnamon candle on the green and white checked tablecloth on the table, stockings (Eeyore, Tigger, Pooh) hung by the mantel with care along with some red beads, an old Santa Claus doll, the Santa train banner, a matching Santa train holly berry candle, a Spode Christmas tree vase with red beads and gold garland inside of it, a hand knitted Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, and the Coven Candles with holiday scented Yankee votives in them. Oh, and a wooden carving of a Victorian family caroling under a gas lamp on the hearth.
Living room: Pine cone candles on the television, a silver cut out Christmas tree tea light burner, two gold balls holding tea lights, Christmas Wreath scented candle, snowman nightlight (with holly berry oil poured into his top hat), swinging snowman (from a wreath) hung on the front door, and fiber optic Santa hung in the front window.
Bedroom: Gold garland strung with multi-colored lights in the window. Gold garland strung over walk in closet door (with two little Christmas balls dangling from either end), gold garland draped over the bathroom door.
My bathroom: Snowman bubble bath dispenser, Ru-Duck, Christmas tree finger towel, Santa box of Kleenex, green and red bell shaped soaps, chapstick with a snowman on the tube.
Study: Silver garland strung with multi-colored lights over the window, silver garland over the closet doorframe, silver garland along the edge of the altar, red “ice” votive candle holder with Frankincense scented candle, my stocking from when I was a little girl on the bookcase, and a hand knitted Mr. and Mrs. Claus (in casual clothes) on top of my CD player. Oh, and George Bailey, the blue pine, on my altar.
I relaxed (finally) in a bathtub full of “Midnight Frost” scented bubbles (by Avon) and finished up the Poirot murder mystery before donning the dreaded caftan and swirling out to watch “Ab Fab” by candlelight.
I talked to Collinwood by the glow of the Christmas lights and then made Hamburger Helper (yet again) and watched the first Harry Potter.
Sunday:
I watched some of my “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts” DVD, and then indulged in “When Harry Met Sally” while doing mega loads of laundry I hadn’t gotten around to on Saturday. Read a book for a while in the afternoon, napped for a couple of hours, and then watched two episodes of “The Office” and one episode of “Coupling” before retiring to bed in preparation for working this morning.
So, now I am done and you are all caught up on my life. Feels good, doesn’t it?
Until next time,
Olrun
