'Twas Right Before Christmas...

And all through the house I had been decorating.

And one of my better finds for the season had been my lovely plastic doorcover of the Holy Family which came complete with lights and music.  At least, initially I thought it was a better find.  What could be nicer than the Holy Family, some lights and Silent Night?

Okay, it's true that as Jimmy was attempting to attach it to the door with assorted screws, as we didn't find the included hanger hook until the next day, by which time it had become redundant, and after repeated trips to Ida's house for thumbtacks so the Holy Family would not droop and sag and generally flap around, there was some language used that one would hope the Holy Family would never hear one speak.

For instance, the repeated utterings of "Jesus Christ" might have been affirmations of the purpose of the season, and asking God to damn a lot of things such as Christmas in general and door covers in particular may not have been exactly appropriate to the mood I was attempting to create, but still.  Eventually the thing was up and ready to welcome visitors with a spirited Merry Christmas.

And boy howdy, did it ever.  I had never realized how many times in a day people came through or went out that door.  Every ten  minutes choirs of angels were singing Silent Night in an increasingly shrill and desperate way, because as near as I can tell, no one ever recorded choirs of angels on a dandy little computer chip ever before.

Had they done so, I would not be listening to it today, as people would have discovered that constantly shrill renditions of Silent Night incline one to murder people and someone would have made a law forbidding the recording of choirs of angels.

I know that real choirs of angels cannot sound like that, because if they did all the shepherds and herds of sheep and any kings hanging around would have run as quickly as possible to Egypt and never have been seen or heard from again, and it would have put a real dent in Christmases yet to come.

And may I point out that we Christians are not all that popular today, anyway, and if we want to avoid being vaporized by some terrorist, perhaps it would be a good idea to just not record Silent Night on a computer chip, drive scores of people mad and somehow manage to associate that with the Holy Family.

I would take the thing down, but I am committed.  That and I paid eight dollars for it and since it's the Holy Family I can't use it to line the cat box or anything, and so I plan to use it until it wears out.  No matter who it drives insane.

If only I could send one to the nice Sheriff's Department, with a special note attached designating it for the Sgt....but, no.  Seperation of church and state, you know.  And I don't know his home address, more's the pity.  Because it is Christmas after all, and one should always try to set aside one's differences for Christmas and what could be nicer, really, than a Holy Family door cover and maybe a Poinsettia?  But I digress.

So then there was the tree.  By the time Chritmas is over, I usually don't care if it never comes again--not the Birth of Christ part, you know, the rest of it--and so I have a tendency to tear down the tree any old way, toss the ornaments in a box, heave the lights into the closet and attempt to erase all memory of it until next year.

Except by next year I've usually managed to forget why I hate it all so much and so I'm all dewy eyed and sentimental and ready to decorate with a vengeance, and that's when I discover that someone took down Christmas the year before with a great lack of regard for the guy who would decorate the tree next year.

This year Lacey and I spent a good two hours unraveling strings of lights only to discover none of them would light.  This year I'm sticking a note in the box that just says, "dispose of this and go to Wal-mart for three new strings of lights."  I won't listen, of course, but at least I will know I tried.

So, anyway, upon setting up the tree we noticed that only two legs of the built in stand were in evidence. Although Lacey gamely buried herself up to the neck in the closet at the head of the stairs, and at one point discovered some mice in her pant leg and made an exit that could have set a new land speed record, we never did find the leg to the tree stand.

Ever resourceful (and unwilling to drive to town for a new tree) we just screwed the remaining two legs to the floor of the sun porch.  Emma helped.  That was fun, but required that we censor our language which made for a very interesting conversation as we thought of many, many new words to replace the word f***, which would have been very much in evidence had it not been a totally PG event.

Could we have gotten an R rating I assure you Christmas would have been very colorful this year. The only strings of lights which never fail are those that have a computer chip that plays Christmas music at the top of it's lungs, not only giving one a headache but competing now and then with Silent Night as played by the front door.

And which you can never find the box for, which is shaped like santa's head and if you press his left eyebrow repeatedly will shut up the lights.  Until some little kid trips over the cord once again, thus resetting Santa and causing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen to resume at top volume.

As if this were not enough, I also have a beautiful set of Carousel lights which were Aunt Margaret's and which I treasure, even though Emma invariably turns them on, turns them up, removes all her clothes and begins to dance to Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.  Which as you have no doubt guessed, is competing wildly with both Santa's God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Silent Night as played by the Holy Family Door Cover.

If I am very lucky, about this time the Target Commercial comes on the television so we can add the Carol of the Bells with stupid advertising lyrics to the general mix.

So, anyway, we're having a blizzard and there's nothing to do now but brew up a nice pot of tea, find a good book and start praying that no one wants to use the front door for anything, no one plugs in the tree and no one turns on the television. 

Perfect quiet, what bliss.