Happy Things Friday: 29 November

We’re on the cusp of what feels like the official start of the Christmas season (1 December) even though our family has been listening to Christmas music for a month, watching Christmas movies, and we have two artificial trees up, lit, and decorated.

Tonight is an exciting night as our family is part of a local Live Nativity production. Belle’s done it twice, I’ve done it once – but this is the first time John is home to participate! Belle is a villager who will wander around the outside stalls, John is a stone mason, and Indy and I are in the angel choir. It’s such a wonderful event and helps everyone refocus on the only thing that really matters this time of year.

This weekend is going to be a mad dash (four Live Nativity shows), and I suspect most of December will feel that way, too, but we’re doing our best to rest and savour the season as much as possible. It’s a bit sobering to think that we all have a limited number of Christmases to celebrate with those we love and, quite frankly, to be alive ourselves. It reminds me of Loveliest of Trees by A.E.Housman:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

We’ll have nearly the same number of Easters as we will Christmases, and fifty Decembers are little room to revel in the joy that is this season!

REST

Indy’s birthday, basketball, the end of volleyball season, Live Nativity practices, work, life – last week was busy. Sunday morning I woke up and thought: I have no desire to get up and rush. Let’s just go to second service! Our church has two services with a 30-minute break in between. We generally go to the first service for the sermon and meet with a group of friends for small group discussion during the second service.

It means we need to be out the door by 9 am. By skipping the first service last Sunday, we didn’t have to leave until 10:50 am. And those two extra hours felt amazing. I took a long shower and dried my hair. I sat at the table and savoured my coffee. I lounged in bed far longer than normal for a Sunday morning.

It’s not something we’ll do often because we value getting to participate in both the service and small group, but once in a while it is rather delightful to change things up.

MY PARENTS ARE HERE!!!

My parents arrived at their rental earlier this week. It is wonderful to have them living so close for the winter months. We end up seeing them most days, sometimes without planning it – because they live so close, I might drive by Mom out for a walk, or bump into Dad at the grocery store. On Wednesday, I stopped in separately with both kids so they could say hello. My mom has taken to leaving a tin of cookies inside the main door because the kids are conditioned to ask for a homemade cookie. She loves that they love it and…well, who doesn’t like Grandma’s cookies?

Their plans went a bit haywire when their car wouldn’t start on Monday – the day they were scheduled to come over from New Brunswick. In the end, they had to delay their trip by a day…which was a huge disappointment for everyone. But they are now here safe and sound and we can’t wait to spend lots of time with them in the coming months. It’s so nice they arrive close to Christmas when we’re getting into the best part of cozy season.

NAPS

The day after Indy’s party – and a few hours after his sleepover – I put myself to bed and Indy ended up waking me two hours later. I had about five minutes to get ready before I had to leave the house (to take him to a hair appointment), but those two hours worked wonders. I felt like a new woman after the extra, much-needed rest.

Later that day, before basketball practice, I schlepped him to Mark’s Work Warehouse to look at their winter boot selection (thanks, Nicole!). He didn’t actually sleep…but I think he could have.

THRIFTED TREE

We have had a string of bad luck with real trees. One year, when we went to remove the tree, the stand ended up getting knocked on its side and a deluge of stinky (seriously – it smelled like ROTTING VOMIT) tree water spilled all over our floor. It was a disgusting, wet nightmare. At the time, John vowed we would never again have a real tree. I immediately protested this decision, and the next two years we got real trees.

Last year we had yet another issue. The day we decorated our tree…it fell over. I was sitting in the living room and watched it happen in slow motion. In reality, it was over in a few seconds. Thankfully, most of our special ornaments escaped unharmed, but the experience was jarring.

At the end of last season, we found what looked like a nice artificial tree at a thrift store for less than $30. It felt like quite a treasure since most of the trees at thrift stores aren’t much to write home about AND they’re a lot more than $30. We bought it on a whim, much to Belle’s dismay. She loves having a real tree and I do see the appeal. The smell! The experience! But…

I was downstairs working while John and the kids set up the tree. Belle burst into the office with a huge grin declaring we were going to get a real tree after all.

Turns out the prelit tree lights (most of which were no longer working) were a nightmare to remove and it looked quick scrawny. I was quick to interject it would all work out, I really wanted to try an artificial tree for a year, and just think – no watering, no dropped needles, no worries about it tipping over.

John and I spent an hour removing cable ties and branch clips holding the old lights in place. It was insane. I’ve never seen lights so welded to a tree before. I suppose they figure when strands burn out people will discard their tree (likely why we found it at a thrift store) and no one will want to go through the hassle of removing the old lights and will opt to buy a brand new artificial tree.

Well, they didn’t consider folks like us – and we are now the proud owners of a freshly lit, artificial tree. Belle is still less than impressed, but even she had to admit it doesn’t look half bad for not being real. It also cost less, doesn’t need to be watered, and allowed us to put the tree up earlier than usual since we didn’t have to factor in how long we could manage to keep a dead tree looking half decent inside the house.

TWINKLE LIGHTS

They just make every day better! See photos above…

BELLE’S ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

Okay, she doesn’t like to apply them to her room, but this girl has SKILLS. She took over putting away basically all the fridge, freezer, and pantry items my parents brought along. Within a few hours of them moving in (and they brought a lot; they spend 1/3 of the year in our town!) it looked almost completely settled and neat and that was due in large part to a certain teen daughter of mine. Now…how to convince her to apply that same level of commitment to her bedroom. At least I know she has the capacity. *shrug*

THRIFTED FINDS + WHEN DO WE THRIFT

Indy didn’t own a single Christmas sweater and it feels like there are several events where one would be warranted and encouraged. I snagged this H&M sweater for $3.85 at a thrift store. On the bottom he’s wearing BRAND NEW fleece-lined Gap pants (he loves them and said it feels like he’s “wearing a blanket” which is a very good thing for this kid because he likes to live cozy) for – you guessed it – $3.85!

This isn’t necessarily a Happy Thing, but I sometimes get questions about when we thrift. There are two main stores we frequent and they are very close to each other. Once every week or two we stop in at one or both. Both stores happen to be adjacent to places our kids regularly have evening activities (three nights a week we’re close to these thrift stores, usually with some time to kill). We primarily use that waiting time to grocery shop or run other errands, but we also usually do a quick walk through a thrift store. There are typically a handful of things we’re looking for at any given time and we know WHERE to look because we go often enough.

For example, last week while waiting for Indy to finish an evening event, John spotted some brand new still-in-box ceiling lights. We need some for our kitchen and they were $25.99 (regularly $80).

When I bought Indy the pants and sweater above, I was in and out of the thrift store in less than ten minutes. I know exactly what I’m looking for, have efficient ways of sorting through available products, and boom. Done!

BONUS HAPPY THINGS

• Indy’s enthusiasm. He is generally so cheerful and jolly and go-with-the-flow.
• Activities will soon be winding down for Christmas. We have some final pushes for choir concerts, but each week a few other things drop off until the new year. Yesterday officially wrapped up Belle’s fall volleyball schedule. Hooray.
• A GYM MEMBERSHIP. John and I bought a couple’s gym membership. It’s at a local community centre and costs a fraction of what the local university (or private) gyms cost. We went for the first time yesterday.

• A haircut. That boy has so. much. hair. and he was delighted to be rid of some excess for a while!

• Positive report cards. First term is done. I’ve heaved a sigh of relief because it has been a tough year for Belle and I think high school will be a good transition for her. But both kids are doing well academically and socially and that is a real blessing. I know learning barriers, social challenges, school dynamics and so many other factors can end up really impacting student performance and mental health so I feel incredibly fortunate that the kids are thriving (despite some less-than-ideal circumstances).
• These Slow Cooker Hot Buttered Apples. Amazing (cooled) in smoothies, and even better served hot over vanilla ice cream. SO GOOD!

And that’s a wrap. Happy Weekending! I’ll be back with on final NaBloPoMo post/giveaway tomorrow. If you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope it was a wonderful day.

Your turn. What are you thankful for this week? Have you ever had a Christmas tree fall over? Are you Team Artificial or Team Real? Do you own a crazy Christmas sweater? Do you have any questions about thrifting?