WEEKEND HOLIDAY SUCCESS

For some reason, as if I do not have a lot of other stuff to accomplish, I decide to extend my holiday decorating.  I put lights over the kitchen cabinets, get all the holiday toys and glasses out, and string garland over the doors and on the staircase.  There's only one more decoration I've been putting off setting up, and that is my tabletop tree.

It has been a hit or miss (mostly miss) over the last decade or two on how and when the tabletop tree gets set up.  I think I've had it set up once in the last six years, and I cannot even remember how many years it was before that.  The ornaments are wrapped up and stored in an old shoe box that was for boots that I bought one of the kids when he/she was in elementary school.  (The picture on the side shows Napoleon Dynamite-type boots, so I imagine it was one of my older kiddos.)

First I have to bring in the patio table from outside.  After I get all the maple tree whirly-gigs out of the tabletop grate, I haul it inside and give the table a good wipe down.  I set up the three-foot tree on top of the table, string on the lights, and start carefully unwrapping the glass bulbs from the old boot box.

Some of the colors have faded on the glass or worn through to the point where there are more silver-ish colored balls than any other color.  I get way too excited when I start unwrapping red bulbs and gold, green, and blue ones.  There aren't many of them, but there are enough to add a pop or two or three of color to the tree.  Of course, when I get to the last blue glass bulb, I drop it, and I don't just drop it anywhere; I drop it on the hard tile floor in the kitchen.

As soon as the fragile, old ornament hits the ceramic floor, there is an explosive pop as shards of glass fly in every direction.  Some shards are in the den near the table and the tree, some shards are in the doorway between the kitchen and the den, and some shards shoot clear across the kitchen (away from the main crash site) by the dishwasher, the oven, the fridge ... There are slivers of blue glass everywhere.

Oh, well.  I guess if the bulbs remain boxed, they'd remain intact, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having them and keeping them in the old boot box.  Once I clean up the mess, I finish the decorating, add some red frosted garland, and wrap a red velvet tree skirt around the base of the tree.  I decide since disaster has already happened, it will probably be safe to set up the Santa Band, as well, and get the entire display ready for prime time.

Now, if I can just find time to wrap and ship some of the presents and maybe even address a few holiday cards, I might be able to declare this entire weekend a holiday success.