Keeping Up With The Kringles

The tree and the stockings are up. After some messing around with batteries, the outside lights are up as well. Merry Christmas!

It's good we put them up else I might forget it's Christmas. Assuming I never turn on the television or radio or Internet.

It doesn't snow here. It doesn't even really get cold until February. Aside from the Hell pit that is Florida in the summer, I constantly feel like I'm two months off of my family, in either direction. For example, it's December everywhere else but it feels like late September here.

Leaves are still changing and falling, for sweet pity's sake. And the palm trees, don't forget the swaying-in-the-breeze palm trees.

People do put lights on them. Said trees look phallic when decorated. That's amusing and a whole other subject.

We didn't go all out with the tree or decorations. For the past two years we've flown to Michigan so decorating wasn't a priority. I mean, why put up things you'll see for a week, go away and come back to dusty things that we'll have then have to put away three days later?

It falls under working harder, not smarter. I'm thrilled to go to my cousin/aunt/brother/sister's house and admire their hard work. I'll consider it mine by proxy seeing as I had to sit on my butt on a plane for three hours to do so.

Besides which, we live in an apartment I constantly compare to a long stay hotel. The only thing missing are key cards instead of actual keys. As you can see from the photos above, that feel is not consistent with wanting to be all Martha Stewart homey.

My apartment in Arizona was much the same way. I don't remember having a Christmas tree either year I was there. It felt pointless. I definitely didn't hang lights.

I remember being so homesick that I cried when my uncle sent me a bottle of water (with a bow on it) with a note that said he'd sent a snowball but he was sure it would melt on the way.

Three days, man, three days I looked at that bottle and sniffed.

Point being, I didn't really see the point. Moving back to Michigan, of course I helped Mom hang hers. She loves them. I went along because I thought that was what people did at Christmas.

Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory gave me the name for that - a social convention. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it but Mom enjoyed it and I wouldn't want to take that away from her. Admittedly, as a teen, I probably complained quite a bit but that's what teenagers do.

Now that I've got My Companion, and a place we call home, I get it. We bought led lights that we can change from inside with a remote because that made sense to us. They're pretty, going from blue to white.

This year, with our family feeling complete with us, cat and dog, we caught ourselves looking for a bigger, better tree. We considered more/different lighting.

As we wandered the nearly empty section at Home Depot, I lost myself in fantasies of my tech savvy guy setting up amazing lighting and sound shows through his MacBook.

I had to shake out of that one. We were 6 aisles from where I had started when I came to.

Christmas is dangerous when you are surrounded by loved ones. I caught myself wondering how cute garland would look strung around the cat tree. If I could convince the dog to wear antlers (probably not) or the cat to wear an ugly sweater (probably).

But I get it now. It's no longer a social convention for me. I'm excited to hit the clearance sales the day after to look for our next tree. And maybe some lights. And speakers. Definitely more tinsel.

Created with images by Hans - "glass ball christmas ornament ball"

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