If A Tree Falls In The Living Room, And No One Is Awake To Hear It.....

Is the cat still to blame?

I've been camping out at the Older Homestead (Mamaw's house) for the last few days, since she bribed me with ill-gotten gains she brought back from the Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma.

Yesterday afternoon, we finally got the Christmas tree put up. Yesterday evening, the Nephews came over and helped me decorate it. Elder Nephew actually did most of the decorating, and directed me in the rest, but Younger Nephew did his bit.

Do you have any idea how cute it is when a one year old boy toddles across a room with a Christmas ball to stand by his aunt's feet and very solemnly lay the ball on the lowest bough, cock his head and look at it, and then look up for approval? He got a big hug and kisses and told how fabulous he was, that is, until Elder Nephew decided enough was enough and tugged on my pant leg to ask me to lift him up so he could reach the taller parts of the tree.

We had a blast, the tree looked like a one year old and a four year old had been in charge of decorating it (those ones look the best anyway) and everyone was happy.

Except, apparently, the cat. Mamaw was glad she had to pee before she came into the dining room this morning, which caused her to take a different route than she might have otherwise. The tree had "mysteriously" fallen in front of the door from her bedroom to the living room.

If she hadn't needed the girls' room, I might have been having to pick her up as well as the danged tree.

Thank goodness we invested in the unbreakable plastic decorations when Eldest Nephew was just toddling around.... we never would have gotten all the glass out of the carpet.

I'm also pretty thankful that it's a fake tree, otherwise it might have been ruined.... I'm never entirely happy with the fake tree, I love the smell of a real tree, but I can't be around them. I'm miserably allergic, which we discovered when I was small. As long as the tree is alive, I'm fine. I'm even ok when it's fairly fresh, but when it starts drying out, even being in the same house with it causes my nose to plug, my eyes to swell, my stomach to become upset, and strange itchy rashes to pop up.

I know that I shouldn't get rashes unless I touch it, but I do, even if I don't know why.

My high school insisted on getting a real tree for years and putting it in the lobby where I had to walk by it, even though I stormed the office every year for three years to complain. The fourth year I just let it go. The fifth year (our high school and junior high were in the same building) I sat in the hallway just off the lobby for an hour before I stormed the office. The office workers and the principal walked by me a few times, so they knew exactly where I sat. When I walked in with my eyes red and swollen enough to be easily noticeable, used half a box of tissues to blow my nose, showed the rash on my arms and threatened to puke on the principal's shoes, they decided it might be a good idea to have a fake tree. For one year.

There's more than one reason I avoid claiming that high school whenever I can.


On another note... I'm back at the apartment now, to do some straightening up and stuff before the holiday, because I won't have time afterwards before company comes.

Five days at Mamaw's... my TV looks dinky after the fifty inch HD flat panel. My tree always looked dinky- it's only three feet tall, after all.