the christmas tree has exited the house. i might say, “finally.” last week when temps were in the 60s and it felt more like may than january, i began thinking that the tree had filled its full christmas potential. the lights just weren’t doing it for me anymore, and the tree was better defined as a gigantic peice of firestarter. i began to fear leaving the lights on when i left the house lest i come back to a smokey skeleton of a brick house.

so today i embarked on the heinous task with such a tumult of feeling: oh, to have my living room back again. the joy! the task did not, at first, take on the prevailing modifier. taking down the ornaments went quickly and smoothly as i had only placed them on the visible side of the tree. likewise, the bead-garlands pulled away from the branches swimmingly. it was the lights (the lights, for crying out loud!) that threw me into a frenzy of christmas tree-hating that i only moments ago was able to lay to rest.

i did manage to tear the lights out of the tree’s vice-like grasp without loss of life or limb. however, my living room floor took on the characteristics of a soft, needle covered forest floor. i might add that even sebastien noticed this, and, before brian took him away from the house so that i could recover some sort of normalcy to our carpet, was trudging through the pine needles like he was on a rocky mountain path. he laughed aloud at the “crunch, crunch, crunch” harkening from his feet.

at last, i vacuumed away the last remnants of christmas, the orange-piney-not-so-goodness blasting from the machine into my poor, over stimulated olfactory nerve. a month ago, i didn’t think this possible, but MAN, am i sick of that smell!

in seb’s words, *fweeee*!

Posted on January 17th, 2005