If you’ve been following this saga at all, you know that this year -- this financially sucky of all years -- I had canceled my traditional tree-trimming party and pretty much Christmas altogether. Cut to the chase: Friends to the rescue. Food. Money. Love. And the party was on.
Oh, and apparently they read my blog, too, because Richard, husband of Pam, and the boy who (blessedly) will not grow up, called me 30 minutes before the party totally busting my ass with this…
Me: (rushing to the phone, dripping from the shower, nowhere near ready) Hello!
Richard: I don’t give a rat’s ass about the longevity of your fucking tree. The house had better be 72 degrees and don’t even think of turning down the heat.
Dubbing him forever more the thermostat Nazi.
If you read the previous post, “Decking the Halls,” you understand this exchange. If not… eh.
Now normally, every year, being the control freak that you now know me to be (if you read my tutorial on hanging Christmas lights and, if not, again…eh), I assign everyone an hors d’oeuvre to bring. This year, since they were the ones giving me the party, I showed rare good grace and just let them do their thing. Imagine my surprise when, left to their own devices there were platters of shrimp, homemade ribs, mini sandwiches, pumpkin cheesecake and Cotswald cheese (that shit’s expensive). Apparently, I’d been letting them off cheap with the “chips-and-dips-fare” all these years. Won’t be making that mistake again.
Add to that our traditional tomato bisque soup and by the end of the evening my Spanx-encased frame had busted out into a gut to rival the Michelin tire boy.
My dear friend, Ian, perpetrator of the whole party caper, worked the room, dutifully shaking down all the guests for cash donations toward the purchase of the tree which he then preceded to surreptitiously slip me throughout the evening like a cheating husband buying blowjobs.
My collection of a gazillion (give or take a few) ornaments, for the most part, remained untouched in their boxes in front of the fire. Most years I can browbeat them into actually decorating the tree at this, a tree-trimming party. I usually bark something along these lines:
“Hey, you fucking free-loaders, get your goddamn asses in there and put on those ornaments. Now! Now! Now!”
Of course this year since they did, after all, bring the food, the wine, and cash, that seemed ever so slightly inappropriate. But don’t think for a moment that it wasn’t on the tip of my tongue. You know who you are.
In my last post, I made this big-ass deal about how anal I am in the application of the Christmas tree lights. Then I posted a photo where you couldn’t even see them and it had to be pointed out to me by a reader that one must turn off the flash on the camera in order to capture the lights. I’m nothing if not a techno-tard (with apologies to the actual mentally-challenged who probably would have known this.)
So here it is. Seven strands, 300 lights each. A glorious, freakin’ bonfire waiting to happen. And yes, I will come to your house and do this for you for an exorbitant amount of money.
Merry Christmas.
If you leave a comment my stomach may one day return to its normal size.
