(cue Mortal Kombat soundtrack)
The Yule season, that is.
This year, we're doing things in far more of a prepared, logical, and sane fashion than last year, mostly because we know what we're doing [take off every zig]. Oppose this to last year, where we both had ideas in mind, but I am rather certain that they did not get carried out in any sort of sane and/or logical fashion.
Last year, we had a rather large tree. This year, we're just going for a small one. Real, of course. Last year, we had a riot of ornaments. This year, we're going for a rather more elegant tree, sacrificing variety for hanging only the loveliest, most color-coordinated, and significant things on the tree. Blue lights (maybe some white, we'll see), silver and blue and purple balls, and a sprinkling of nifty other things, including the blue and silver tinsel garland.
The rest of the house, of course, will be decked up to Kether.
votania and I are gleefully strewing holiday abandon about. We have her window decked with the gold tinsel garland from last year, the patio doors with ditto, and some of the louder, yet still quasi-tasteful, plastic balls from last year dangling from that garland. The front door will have more of the gold garland, this time with the
festive yet collectively gawdawful little glittery drums hanging from it.
All shall be good.
We tested the lights. We tossed the bad ones. We need to get spare bulbs to fill in the gaps in the string of bubble lights (which will not be going on the tree). The bubble light that didn't light was also the one that broke and leaked All! Over! Everything!, and the silver loose icicle tinsel in the box didn't help much either. Fortunately, the white iridescent icicle tinsel was contained in its original packing, and I thus pretended to be Storm for a little bit, before looking in the mirror and deciding that while Halle Berry can pull off that look just fine, I can't.
Loose tinsel is an anti-gift from the gods, especially with one damn cat around, and we're never using it again. We still have that package of white iridescent tinsel, though, and it would be a shame to waste it. Therefore,
votania's mother, who hates the stuff, should get the joy of it, should we use some of it to glitter up the packages we give to the gemstone trio.
The business portion of my day was begun with a trip to WalMart, which turned into a bit of a trip to the Spectrum Mall. Dinner was the first point of order, though we had to drag Nephew away from the toy shops, and
votania away from some of the other cool things. After finishing a decent dinner (broccoli beef over fried rice on my part, washed down with chocolate-covered-cherry Dairy Queen blender monstrosity and lactose-digestion pills) we marched on WalMart to get the recipt books that
votania needs for her budding necklace business. (Insert shameless plug here...)
At this point, we all discovered that we needed to visit the shrine of that infamous Porcelain God. Not food poisoning, just... too much soda. Naturally, the bathrooms we headed to first were closed for cleaning.
After that, we found what we needed (her reciepts, my wrist brace) and then headed on to that far more important spot of stuff to take care of: Yule! We wound up with a box of lights, a tin of popcorn, the pretty silver/blue garland, probably some assorted randoms that I am forgetting, and UHF on DVD.
We got home slightly before nine, and proceeded to put the small monkey to bed. We hauled out the old couch (we'd had two, the first said goodbye for Mabon, and this one wasn't in much better shape), then hauled the Yule/holiday box out of the storage shed, which entailed removing all the gifts stashed away in there, some of
marxdarx's paintings, his easel, a shelf, the cardboard bricks, and assorted other things before we could unearth said Yule box. It was double struggle to get everything back in.
What a mess.
Lights and decorations are still strewn all over the floor. Somehow,
votania and I got caught up in watching
Boondock Saints, and only resumed our frenetic scurryings afterwards, with a bit less vim and vigor.
Now, I finish my soup, and I go to bed. I won't have homework due until Wednesday, thank gods.