Work in Progress

Dinah:. o O (Hmph…is this supposed to be a challenge??? I’ll have that angel down in no time!)

Megan’s been bugging me about putting up a tree since Thanksgiving, so last night we went out and got a little table-top tree. I’m hoping that something this size won’t do too much damage when (not if) the cats knock it over. I’ve gotten as far as stringing the lights (the part of the job that I loathe with every fiber of my being), so the next step is to start throwing ornaments at it.

Last year was our first Christmas with the little demons, and as they still had claws then, I knew there was no way we’d be able to have a real tree. They’d be high-fiving each other at the top of it before I could say, “Look kitties, here’s our Christmas tree!” Luckily, I went to a craft fair the day after Thanksgiving and found this:

So that was our tree last year, and to get my $25 worth out of it, we decided to get it out again this year…so now we have 2 trees.

Just to be extra-annoyingly-festive (or maybe just to see how much scotch tape I could use up), I also strung some lights up around the pass-through into the kitchen. (They look better without the flash. Oh, and please ignore the doorless kitchen cabinets…they are a work in [not too much] progress.)


And on another note, if you’ve seen the latest Pier One commercials, you’ve seen the really cute, retro-looking VW Beetle ornament that flies around…I want that ornament!


I buy Megan one new ornament every year and put it in her stocking, so that one day she will have plenty of ornamentsย  to fill up her very own tree. Recently I taught her a pass-time-in-the-car game that I used to play as a child…I’m pretty sure it’s something that my mother and/or our next door neighbor made up to keep my friend, Michael and I quiet in the car. Whenever you see a Volkswagon Beetle, you scream out, “pinochle,” and the person who spots the most VW’s wins the game. Well, Megan has embraced this game wholeheartedly, and its reached the point in our competition where we take pictures of Beetles with our phones and send them to each other when we’re not together. She would love that ornament!

I went to two different Pier One stores yesterday to see if this ornament actually exists. While both stores had many similarly-colored, bright, glass ornaments, they did not have this one. When I got home and checked on the internet, I found that this ornament is in pretty hot demand, and stores only received limited quantities of them. Now, if I *really* want one, I can get it on ebay…for anywhere from $70 on up. Unfortunately, that’s a little out of my price range for a $6 ornament!

If anybody sees one at a Pier One anywhere, though, let me know!!!

45 thoughts on “Work in Progress”

  1. I loved the ” High fives” lol! I will keep my eye out for the ornament.

    I know now what my Christmas gift to you is…I am coming over on a weekend very soon and finishing those doors and you can supply the booze..lol But seriously I am coming to finish them!

    Tell Megan Aunt Jen said…Hi!

  2. Well, I hope you know how to hang 'em, 'cause I hung one door, and it was all kinds of crooked…so that's kind of why I gave up. (I changed the hardware, so the new hinges don't line up with the old holes.)

  3. Jen – I use my mind to hold airplanes up in the air while I am flying on them. Luckily, I don't fly much, because it tends to give me a headache. lol…

    Kat – isn't it so cute? I've got to find one. And I'm not sure my tree beats out your closet…that's pretty inventive, after all!

  4. Congratulations Jenny.. you are being FESTIVE!! This is a positive step for you.. lol. That's a good picture of Dinah. Really says it all.

    When my kids played the VW game they called it Punch Buggy.. and then would punch each other in the arm and say “Punch Buggy Blue” or whatever color they saw, quickly followed up with “No punches back”, because you can only punch once per buggy you know. Who thinks up these things anyway?

    Excellent idea about the ornaments. Darn! I wish I had thought of that, but since you did, I'll now borrow your idea and start a new tradition.

    Did you check the Pier One in Laurel? I think I'll be over there this week.

  5. pff, just do what my neighbor does, and leave'em on all year long. hahaha ๐Ÿ™‚

    Sometimes, when we're decorating my uncle's house, I wanna just make that teeny tiny suggestion. =:D I'd probably get tossed off the 3rd floor for daring to break with tradition, however, …. it may be worth it? (maybe? ….. nahhhh) hahahaah ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. This family banter is crackin' me up!!

    Jen, I absolutely LOVE your tree from last year. What a brilliant idea. I rescue cats [I call them whiskered ninjas], so I currently have six residing in my home [some of them are actually mine, some of them are too lame to reside in the cattery, and two of them still need to be fixed],

    The new little tabletop tree is beautiful! If you use live trees, you definitely need to get one early if you want a really pretty one.

    I'm giving my tree [yep, I use a fake tree … shame is me] to my daughter — complete with all the lights and ornament. The ornaments are teddy bears I've purchased and collected from around the world, garland made from dark cranberry colored wooden beads, and pearl white lights. I dunno where I got the idea, but the bears have been a tradition we've had so much fun with over that past twenty years. Every year we buy a dozen or so smaller bears to decorate the bottom half of the tree specifically for our friends who come over with their kids. The kids get to pick a bear off the tree to keep. I'm a bit miffed though. This is the first Christmas with my daughter not living at home, so she should have gotten the tree for this Christmas. I wasn't fast enough though. Her boyfriend's mom brought over an old tree she'd had in storage and a pile of ornaments that they don't use. I taught that girl to be polite, so she graciously accepted the tree and ornaments and promptly put up the tree they were given. She says she just cringes every time she looks at it, and so does her boyfriend. Now we don't quite know how to politely switch trees, but we have a year to come up with a solution. HA I'm still going forward with my original plans to start from scratch on our new family tree. I think I'll look for a tree that already has the lights on it. That will alleviate the dreaded stringing of lights.

    Oops! Sorry. I didn't mean to write a blog on your blog.

    Yahyah … I gotta hear more about this tree in a closet thing!! lol That sounds brilliant!

  7. The Christmas Closet idea “happened” upon us when we were living out in Washington State. We lived in an apartment that didn't afford the room for a Christmas tree. It was either the tree, or the dog's crate. ๐Ÿ˜‰ The crate wins every time, lol.

    RocketBoy was just 7 and 8 years old during those 2 Christmas Holiday seasons, and it was awful that we couldn't really put a tree up… so I made up this whole story and we sent to him in an e-mail. ๐Ÿ™‚ We made an MSN logon we called some version of Santa Claus, and the whole 9-yards.

    The story was that since he was visiting his dad before Christmas, Santa had to figure a way to get presents to him before he left us to return to Maine. (It's one of the reasons Santa is able to get “all” those presents delivered by Christmas morning, because there are lots of kids like RocketBoy at Christmas time. =: > )

    How it ultimately went down was like this. Santa has a crew of Elves known as “The Secret 7”. They're Santa's “elite”. They actually scope out the “early delivery locations” ahead of time, so Santa's sure to be able to make a smooth and clean getaway. They did this through the “inside” of the closet because they turned it into a “Portal” from the North Pole. =:D The problem that we didn't have space for a tree wasn't entirely uncommon, so RocketBoy was directed to “build” this “Christmas Closet” to house this portal. He was told how to do it, too. Empty it out, completely. Wrap the entire outside of the door with wrapping paper, ribbon, and at least 1 bow. He was directed to put lights around the hangar rack on the inside, and lights around the door framing on the outside. When the lights go on, on the inside, is when the Elves have made their visit to check the status of the closet. The next time there's a visit,… there will be presents inside the closet. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Then he was given a “list” of things to do. Simple stuff like cleaning his room, doing jumping jacks, drinking water, and hopping on 1 foot while hollering “I love Christmas!!” (gotta admit, that one was my favorite, hahahaha – kids are SO CUTE!) . The *last* thing on the list was for him to walk the dog down to the end of the parking area, and back. He thought, for sure, that this is when the presents would be dropped off, but when he looked, to “catch” Santa in the act… Nada =:D

    After the list was complete and the dog had been walked, we all piled into the car to go out to dinner. I'd make up this reason to have to rush back inside for something and I'd make like I was rushing back out, when the whole time I'm in there I'm running madly from our bedroom to the closet… stuffing it with presents. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    When we'd get back from dinner? hahaahah ๐Ÿ™‚ Merry Christmas! And he thought it was all quite magical. ๐Ÿ™‚

    I kinda long for simpler times, y'know? lol….

  8. dejaviewstudio, here's an idea. If you daughter lives in an apartment and has a storage area, she can claim someone broke in and stole the tree and the ornaments….but tell the bf's Mom that her Mom felt sorry for them and quickly sent them a replacement……..I should have been a criminal.

  9. Wow, I get busy at work one day and can't check multiply, and when I get home there's all kinds of great stuff to read!!! Too bad I have to run back out now to take Megan over to school for her dress rehearsal.

    I'll be thinking of more ways to ditch the ugly tree while I'm gone….

  10. Y'all are crackin' me up!! I can't change their tree this year. I honestly believe the woman will be my daughter's mother-in-law within the next year or two, and I like her. She just has the most awful taste in decorating, clothing, etc. She even owns one of those hairless dogs with no teeth and the tongue hangin' out. She thinks the dog is cute. Kinda scares me to know that she thinks my daughter is beautiful. What exactly is she using to measure “beautiful” with? lol Slap a cow and bite my tongue … that was just an awful thing for me to say about her, wasn't it? One bad karma point for me today.

  11. Wait until next year and say the tree was abducted by aliens. Or, do like I did (accidentally) the year before last…manage to lose the tree stand, rendering the tree absolutely useless. For some reason, artificial tree stands are not universal. I wound up having to throw away the tree because I couldn't find a stand that would fit it anywhere. 6 months later, guess what I found while cleaning out the linen closet…

  12. Kat, I have no clue where that came from. I tend to type whatever's floatin' around in the cranium at the moment.

    Jen, I think I like the lost tree stand idea. I've lost a tree stand before, and you're right, you might as well just toss the tree out. Now we just have to figure out how to lose all those ugly ornaments she gave them. HA Keep thinkin' Jen … you're gooooooood!

  13. Well, the ornaments were in the same box as the tree stand, of course. OOOOOOHHHH…they were in a box that was sitting next to a box of things to go to Goodwill, and oops, both boxes went by mistake.

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