Holiday happenings

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house. Over the past few weeks, Mom and Dad have put up a Christmas tree and a handful of other decorations to celebrate the holidays. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. Because as much as Dad loves Christmas, I’ve been told from reputable sources (read: Mom) that he’s never been big on putting up decorations and lights and stuff like that.

It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate giving our home a festive look – more that he’s just incredibly lazy. Need an example? Apparently last year, the extent of his holiday decorating was to plug in a Christmas-themed nightlight. And he never even bothered to switch it on.

But it turns out that, since this is going to be my first Christmas, they decided to pull out all the stops. And frankly, I’m a little flattered that all it took for them to get off their butts and make some sort of effort was to have a kid.

So anyway, they put up the tree a couple of weekends ago, and they also went out and bought a new stocking for me to go along with theirs. I think it looks pretty good up there. As for the tree, it’s not that big (just six feet), but then again, neither is our living room, so it fits pretty well.

Look what Santa left under the tree.

That’s just one aspect of the holidays that we’ve been enjoying so far. Here's another: On Dec. 10, we went down to Alki Beach with Auntie Amy and Uncle Ben to check out the Christmas Ship Festival. It’s not as exciting as it sounds (or maybe it’s exactly as exciting as it sounds): It’s just a bunch of ships floating by with choirs onboard, singing to the people onshore. Nothing earth-shattering, but still an enjoyable way to get into the holiday spirit. Plus, it gave me a chance to get all bundled up in my cold-weather outfit and snuggle up close to Dad.

And on top of all that, I got to see Santa Claus riding a motorcycle. Not too shabby.

Afterward, we went for a drive to look at Christmas lights, and I experienced this:

Even Clark W. Griswold thinks this is too gaudy, but who cares? You can FEEL the Christmas spirit radiating from this house! (Or maybe it’s just the heat being produced by 50,000 volts of electricity. I couldn’t tell.) We haven’t had a chance to make it by this house yet this year, but hopefully soon. Mom and Dad have checked it out the past couple of years, and it never disappoints.

Oh, also, I just realized that it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve mentioned just how amazing my mom is, and that’s far too long. She wanted to get a Santa hat for me this Christmas, but instead of going out and buying one, she MADE one. What’s more, it only took her about two hours total (hand-sewn, no sissy sewing machine). Here I am early in the process, when she was making sure the fit was right. Good Lord, I look stupid. I look like the Elf on the Shelf.

Was the final product worth the humiliation of that previous photo? Judge for yourself below. I’m inclined to say yes. Was it worth paying twice as much for fabric and supplies as it would've cost to just buy a hat at Target? Even Dad says yes.

But here's the real test: Was it worth the two hours we spent inside Jo-Ann Fabrics, waiting for our number to be called just so we could buy less than a yard of fabric? Normally I’d say no, but it was actually pretty entertaining making fun of all the Christmas-sweater-wearing cat ladies who spend their weekends hanging out at fabric stores.

In case you’re wondering – and, if you’ve read down this far, you at least have some passing interest in my life – I’ll be spending my first Christmas in Kennewick with Dad’s family (we’ll have the whole clan together for the first time since I was born), then we’ll be heading over to Redmond on Dec. 26 to do it all over again with Mom’s family. I’ll let you know if I get anything good in my stocking.