Your front-row seat to my nervous breakdown

Do you know that it’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year? Yeah, this is what they tell me.

Unfortunately, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that concept, because, when I picture in my mind’s eye the circumstances surrounding a time period bearing the title “Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” nowhere in that vision do I see myself dressed as Indiana Jones running through a cave while the month of December bears down upon me like a giant fucking boulder, threatening to crush me under the weight of too many commitments and too little time and hardly any sleep and a failing immune system and boo-fucking-hoo for me, right? Yeah, I figured I’d be breaking your heart.

Well, listen, there are all kinds of reasons for my shoddy blogging performance this month … to include weird, kooky stuff that will involve a lot more explaining than I’ve the energy for right now, so let’s make the most of what little time we have together today, and I’ll get into the aforementioned weird and kooky stuff sometime in the near future. (Yes, I know “weird” and “kooky” are not uncommon occurrences around here, but I’m talking even weirder and kookier than usual. With any luck, the suspense won’t kill you.)

Speaking of run-of-the-mill weirdness and kookiness: ’tis the season to bring a dead tree into your home for you and your family to festoon with lights and shit! We had originally planned to get ours at the end of November so that we could enjoy its grandeur and bask in its splendor for as long as possible … and it’s a good thing we planned on that timeframe, because it kept the pressure on us to finally get out and buy one on December 7th.

Of course, like any blogger worth his or her salt, I wanted to document the occasion, so I brought the camera with us to the tree place … and a good thing, too, because that was how Wonder Woman caught this epic shot:

Oops! Ha ha. Oh, that’s a good one. Yes, Mr. Shithead Extraordinaire once again forgot to put the card back in the camera … and the only person who loves it when I do that more than me is Wonder Woman. Man, if only you could have seen the expression on her face. Why, if I could have, I’d have taken a picture of it.

So, anyway, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that we selected and purchased a tree from a legitimate source instead of, like, driving around till we saw one tied to the roof of an unattended vehicle that we then cut loose, threw on top of our ride and drove off with. Because that would just be wrong. Especially if we got caught. Again.

Not to worry, though, because after we returned home with our prize, Wonder Woman fetched the card and captured all the bringing-in-the-tree excitement:

Yep. Carrying a tree. Happy happy.

Oh yes, happy happy indeed as I try to shove a tree into my tiny house through my tiny front door. Hopefully, Santa couldn’t hear the words dancing in my head. They had nothing to do with sugar plums, I assure you.

Ta dah! Mission accomplished.

Of course, we didn’t want to overexert ourselves, so we waited until the following night to actually decorate the sucker.

Yes, we had a grand ol’ time … you know, when we weren’t telling the kids to stop fighting over the ornaments they wanted to hang, and threatening them with the prospect of coal on Christmas morning. (And, seriously: wouldn’t that make for one hell of a blog entry? The kids get up Christmas morning and actually find coal instead of toys? Fucking epic, am I right? Good thing I’m just sick enough to think of it, but not sick enough to actually tell you about it when I do it.).

Honestly, though, it never fails: one child could pick up a fossilized turd on a hook, and even if the other child had his or her choice of 900 unattended magical baubles filled with wish-granting genies, both children would fight over the turd. At first, I couldn’t figure out why this dynamic seemed to be bothering me more this year than I remembered it bothering me last year … and then it dawned on me: last year, the tree trimming was accompanied by wine drinking; there were no spirits involved in this year’s proceedings. That shall never happen again. Ever.

Zan asked for and received the honor of placing atop the tree the Santa star that always occupies that spot.

Careful …

OK, so perhaps he has a bit of a flair for the dramatic.

Alright, make that a whole lotta flair for the dramatic.

The good news is that we never have to wonder about whether or not he’s excited.

This is the aforementioned Satan Santa star, by the way:

… and, no, it isn’t sparkly or shiny or majestic, but the dude has perched his ass at the top of the tree for years now, and I don’t have the heart to fire him.

But seriously, folks: I’m actually not a Bah-humbug-er; I love the holidays, and I am a total sucker for how beautiful everything looks when all the decorating is done. I just suck at the getting-it-done part. (Speaking of which: I managed to hang the outdoor lights without falling off the ladder this year. Yay, me!)

It’s always fun to trot out the ornaments, as just about every one we hang holds some specific meaning or memory for us from years past. It’s hard to believe that this is the 12th Christmas tree Wonder Woman and I have decorated as a married couple, the seventh that Zan has been around for, and the fifth that Jayna has seen.

How the hell did we go so quickly from here …

to here?:

I want Santa to bring me a time machine so I can slow this shit down.