Tinsel and Dust

We decorated the house today. Finally.

I used to thing decorating for Christmas was such a lovely idea. Of course, I kept that notion because it was Mom who did all the ingenious originalities that we saw every year. Now because Mom is so tired and busy that the task is left to us (US, meaning usually Bianca and myself, and occasionally, Dad). And good Lord. What a chore!!! It's tedious rummaging through BOXES and BOXES and BOXES--!!! And dust too. Never forget the dust...

Bianca had to pry me from the TV to get things done. As I said, it's a chore, mostly because it involves cleaning up and rearranging and sighing over everything else. Plus the chaos makes my head hurt, so I can't think straight.

We did the tree first. I think it would be interesting to say that our Christmas tree is older than I am (Dad had it ever since he could remember), that it came from Clark Air Base, and I think is the only tree I've encountered that still has real needle-like needles (unlike the common ones today, which have flat paper-like things for pine needles). It gets pretty cramped up during storage, but it's "regal" when put up. Dad said so anyway.

We used the starchy-white, crocheted snowflakes from last year. (Last year was the best decorating season ever-- we were actually inspired enough to make the color scheme work. ) And some Christmas balls. I wanted to kick them all, because my fingers were hurting from trying to stick the makeshift wires into the whole lot. Ngyar. Anyway, we got around that and finished the tree, putting some other stuff into it. Its look says... eclectic modern. Maybe when I post a picture you'll know why. Dad also got the lights on. As of now, it looks pretty spruced up and fat, a big difference from what it looked like this morning.

In spite of the itchiness, the sweat, the mess of fake evergreen leaves on the floor, tinny and insipid Christmas medleys from insane lights, I think we finished the job pretty well. There's only one area left to do, but I think it's okay not to do that anymore.

Oh yeah, the Belen is on a table at the corner of the living room, because there isn't any safe space to place them. Every figure is breakable. It's a good thing we found the other, less Barbie-like set, because the colorful one only had Mary, Joseph, the Three Kings and baby Jesus left (and this kind of baby Jesus had a blue pillow and was wearing a pink flannel gown). The more solemn set was a crowd (it has a lot of extra people), complete with sheep, a cow, a donkey and a camel. The camel's head was severed, but we superglued it on, to our great satisfaction, and spent the rest of the time terrorizing baby Jesus with the camel.