Mix Mas

It was the day after Thanksgiving and I couldn’t have been more anxious to make my first Holiday season in my new apartment one of pure holiday cheer and joy. The plan was to get a huge tree, bake everyday, spend copious amounts of time in seasonal pajamas and somehow have all of the daily worries and annoyances that occur during the rest of the year magically disappear. Easy, right?

The tree stood a majestic 7ft tall and even though it was a bit out of our price range – I just had to have it. Adam saw that I’d fallen in love (craze) with this tree and agreed that we’d get it. Christmas was off to a great start! The second we got it into our apartment I abandoned the fun origami theme that we had been planning all year (not majestic enough for this regal tree) and went full force into decorating a tree that could have vomited classical Christmasness on anyone in it’s vicinity. Trips were made to Target, Pier 1 and anywhere else that I saw a shiny dangling piece of Christmas crap. Once purchased, I spent hours placing every ball, star and bird meticulously. In fact, I think the only reason I stopped decorating the tree was that we’d run out of ornaments. But ok – one flurry of a day after bringing it into our home, I stood back and pronounced it decorated.

That night my friend Zach came over and I of course asked him what he thought of the tree. He stopped strolled around it for a moment and said, “It’s nice – for a Nordstrom tree”. Gasp, swallow, gain composure. “A what? Nooo!” As Adam and Zach laughed, I realized what I had done. My entire tornado esq. mania had become frightening clear in my mind and there I was staring straight at the (lets get real) Mervyns tree that I had made. How did this happen? With all my good intention and months of chatting about the funny tree we would have, I had become so fixated on the result that I hadn’t just let our holiday occur. It is a lesson that I learn time and time again, my little power motor of a noggin can’t just force experiences to be what I want them to be. Ashamed, I went tail between my legs to Adam, he shook his head sweetly, his little monster had done it again, and what was worse he knew that now the hallmark monstrosity that we had in our living room was dead to me. In his ever patient manner, he helped me take every ornament off the tree. Three days later we together had created an underwater wonderland tree, complete with lobsters, scuba divers, whales, sunken treasure and of course a pirate ship tree topper that has brought all the holiday merriment a girl could hope for.