Artificial Intelligence

Does the middle piece of your 3 part artificial Christmas tree piss you off as much as mine does me? Being all holier than thou, thinking it's the glue that holds my holiday fun together.... I tell you, after the first few years of fake tree bliss the honey moon period wears off and that middle tree piece just becomes annoying.
You start to notice things, like how it's so much more smug than the top and bottom pieces, how it acts superior every Christmas you haul it out and place it on the bottom piece, crowning it with the wee top. It acts like it invented Christmas and that I should give it more ornaments because it's easier to reach than the top and bottom.
Fret no more, your free loading, hate fueled by fake fir, middle tree piece days are OVER.
Say goodbye...to the jam in a tree sandwich, where in the top and bottom pieces are the bread and the middle is the jam and what I'm saying is you don't NEED THE JAM.
Hear that sound?
The sound of boo-hooing from the garage where the middle piece lays abandoned on the cold cement floor? Well ignore those tears, they're as fake as the whole tree.
I give to you, the world at large or at least the percent that uses the internet and wanders into my neck of the virtual woods..... the NEW look for your same artificial tree. If your tree doesn't have 3 pieces....well.......look on the bright side, no smug, superiority complex pieces for you to deal with.
I've been kicking around this idea for a while, sometimes hearing it rattle back to the forefront of my mind, squeezing it's way between clay character ideas, thoughts about coffee and world domination. (Ignore that last one, it's rather un-holiday-esque to admit to things like wanting world domination instead of peace)
This year my idea become a reality!
We left out the aforementioned and verbally bashed middle section of the tree. We did need to do a little creative finagling because the top piece didn't actually connect to the bottom piece all stable and perfect like. (It's as if the artificial tree craftsman don't WANT you to play with your tree like it's a really scratchy set of building blocks)
Not wanting to deal with yelling "Timber" if the top piece fell off, we found a sturdy bit of cardboard tube we'd saved, because of course we save cardboard tubes. It's an unwritten rule of life. Every one saves cardboard tubes and makes fun of each other behind their backs. This is one of those reaaaaaaaalllly sturdy sort, ultra thick. We cut a piece that fit over the bottom section of tree pipe..er...trunk...and also over the trunk of the top piece. It needed a little stuffing of tissue paper to create a perfect tight fit, but Voila! My new tree jam!
Since the cardboard tube wasn't working for me, decoratively speaking, I took a piece of artificial garland and wrapped around it.
Now you can't even tell anything is different! You can applaud if you want, I'd clap too if I weren't busy typing.
Fluff your tree as usual, connect the lights and go on about your holiday making with a brand new look for your same ol' fake tree!
I LOVE this look! We set our tree up on a stand we have in the living room to provide some of the height lost because we left the snooty middle piece out. The NEW tree look is more natural, less perfectly pruned and conical, more like the kind of Christmas tree you find in the wild. I like wild. I like my tree and maybe some year when I'm ready for a taller more traditional shaped tree maybe I'll even like my middle piece again. Maybe.

Most use of the letter "F" ever!

Have I mentioned I have a Facebook Fan Page?
Well I do!
Have I mentioned I have a Facebook Fan Page with ACTUAL fans, like people who are not my Mom and were in no way coerced into becoming a fan of my "A Little Character" page?
Well I got them too, and not just in my head all imaginary like, but real life fans!
They're on the internet and not in my back yard so maybe that makes them virtual fans, but that's still a big step up from imaginary!
So that brings me to the joyous news of my Facebook Fan Page GIVEAWAY...
I should clarify I'm not giving my fans away, hell no, I'm keeping every one of those lovely people. But rather I am hosting a giveaway on my Fan Page.
A drawing for one of my Christmas stockings, designed and created by yours Truly, an Up-cycled, Victorian inspired delight to hang on one's mantle, door, end of your nose...where ever. Up to the winner what they do with it.
And being a fair sort of person, when I've had my daily hit of caffeine, I wanted to make sure my blog visitors knew of this Holiday themed drawing as well! All you have to do if you want to be entered into the drawing for this 26 " long beauty is visit my Fan Page, become a fan and leave a comment on the post entitled "Holiday Drawing for a FREE Stocking!"
The Drawing will be on November 20th at 6pm Pacific time and the winner will be announced on my Fan Page a little after.
One last bit of nicey-nice, I created a holiday card featuring some of my clay characters and made it available as a pdf for anyone and every one to download and print, for FREE.
I can almost hear the grumbles now, "So THIS is why she isn't blogging every day, what with all the making things and writing stories for them, managing her Facebook page, multiple twitter accounts and who knows what else!"
And this is where I say, "Suck it, I made a holiday downloadable pdf card, come on, NOTHING says virtual internet love like a holiday downloadable pdf card!"

Holiday Hibernation

(Look at all that empty space. Where the tree once stood there is nothing now but one plastic grandchild which lays there drunkenly until I stuff her back in the closet until next Christmas. Look past her to the SPACE. A gal could do a lot with space like that. I feel giddy.)

I knew it was time when I heard that very distinct sound. The subtle, hypnotic sound akin to trickling water from the eaves of a house on a rainy day in Spring. The sort of sound that is soft and gentle and makes one's own eyes start feeling heavy, falling under the mesmerizing spell of something else falling asleep.
But I am not in the mood for sleeping.
I am in the mood for throwing open my craft closet doors and peering into the very depths of chaos and grabbing hold of messes by the throat and throttling them back into submission. Until at such time when I am done, and the beast of clutter has been, if not tamed, subdued, and I shut the closet doors on new order. On neat and tidy little rows of jars labeled prettily with little stickers that say things like "Bottle Caps" and "Dead cd's".
This may be an unattainable goal, I may end up with teetering piles of things that should not even share the same closet let alone the same shelf like clay and broken drinking glasses I can not bare to part with, but it IS my mood.
So this slowly creeping, softly crawling fog of dozy contentment settling over the house just will not do. If it were a child it's head would be dipping further and further until it's chin bumped it's own chest and I would grab the video camera and record it so we could all sit about later and laugh. If it were a bear it would grumble softly and snort and snuffle and lay it's mighty paw across it's eyes and burrow underneath it's own weight as best it could. If it were my cat the snores would already be alarmingly loud and shaking the walls of a house better than any earthquake.
But it's not any of that. It's Christmas.
Christmas is tired and as much as it and I would love to keep it up all year there comes a moment when you realize it's time to go to bed.
Even the most exciting time of year slows down. It can not keep such a frenetic pace forever. But it tries, if you let it, Christmas will try and keep up, like a faithful puppy following along wagging it's garlands and glittering lights. But eventually it's energy lags, it's light dims and you see the drooping of it's ornaments, the Nutcrackers are no longer standing to attention as much as they are asleep on their feet. And every so often like a gust of wind a soft sigh sweeps through the house as Christmas yawns and struggles to stay awake.
It's contagious too.
I would love to see all my Christmas surround me the whole year but as the sun shines longer every evening and the weather warms and my urge to organize has my fingers itching, Christmas weaves it's spell. It hunkers down and yawns again and I find my eyes tearing as I struggle against my own urge to yawn. To perhaps just curl up on the soft white blanket beneath the tree and have a little nap.
But beware.
Christmas is used to napping for 11 months and if you do not wish to do the same then you mustn't fall under it's spell.
So I concede.
It's time.
Christmas is all but asleep on it's feet so I begin to haul out the bags and containers that it will hibernate in for the year. And just like that, as if sensing relief from the constant effort of being merry, like a smile held too long and hard Christmas droops and folds in on it's self and I hear the faintest rustle of ribbons snuggling tight together and then nothing.
It's eerily quiet as Christmas is tucked away into the garage.
Almost too quiet and I worry for a moment that it could smother in it's bag. I wonder if I know tree cpr and I wonder if perhaps I left Christmas up just a little too long if I am frozen with indecision and guilt and glancing back longingly at the huddle of shadowy shapes that is Christmas asleep in the corner.
But I shake it off. And I do not walk away but run. Renewed energy.
The absence of Christmas makes the living room look naked and vulnerable. But I kind of like it. I run over and stand where the tree was and spin a circle glorying in this instant space. I marvel at how much rooooooooom there is and it makes me itch with an un-natural urge to vacuum. To fluff pillows and dust shelves and rearrange the books. Christmas is asleep and the energy of a new Year has me half drunk with desires to move the sofa and alphabetize the spices and arrange my clothes in the closet by color.
I want to wear tank tops and walk bare feet and have ice cream cones. I want to make jams and salads and raise every blind in the house so that sun pours in and reveals the sparkling dust motes in the air and covering every surface. I want to go wild with my duster and sweep and brush in crazy places I haven't ever dared look before like on top of door frame, tippy toe style under the watchful eye of my cats. I want to think about gardens and plant herbs and sit down to some serious figuring about whether I can grow a giant king sized pumpkin in a container on my second floor patio. I want to hear bees and smell flowers and stalk the lizards who warm themselves on the patio and crawl with my butt in the air after them with my camera jammed against my face and hope that google earth takes a good picture of my ass.
And then, to top it all off. I want to do things I never even thought of doing before.
I want to raise the garage door and reveal the pandemonium inside to the January sun. I will stand there, back lit with my weapons of choice. My broom and my spider stick and will resist the urge to giggle maniacally lest the neighbors hear.
I want to FIND the garage floor, I want to stack and move and shift and arrange until it is unrecognizable in it's new trim tidiness. Then I want to sweep that floor and spin circles on it too and maybe have races with old backless office chairs across the concrete whilst Christmas sleeps mere feet away, unknowing, un-caring.
Dreaming about snow and candy canes and mulled wine and little oranges that make stockings bulge roundly, boxes of chocolates, full tummies and carols blasting from the speakers and maybe...of me.

Fairies and dragons and bears oh my....

If they'd been equipped with little hammers they'd have been clobbering me over the head for days now.
Not that I'd have noticed as apparently I am dense. VERY dense.
It might be a Canadian thing, a certain amount of hereditary cultural denseness that makes us all withstand winter after winter after..oh look MORE snow.
I have been moaning about the lack of tree decorating that has happened here, well as much as I moan. It's more like I have been remarking on a daily basis that I am surprised the earth has not spun off it's axis and crashed into the moon because I have not put any decorations on my lovely, but bare, pre-lit Christmas tree.
I have an excuse though. My husband has written me a note explaining to any one who dares question my lack of Christmas spirit, that we have both been up to our holly jolly ears in work. Apparently his clients don't care if our tree is decorated or not and still expect their websites when they're due...go figure, and I apparently am addicted to Etsy. It's just that every time I sell an item on there the people, just like my husband's clients, expect me to actually SEND them their item.
And then I feel inspired and thrilled and craftiness is practically spewing from my fingertips as I create character after character to re-supply my store. The crafty circle of life keeps a spinning and the tree is giving me a guilt complex.
On top of the business, which we very very much appreciate, I have had the audacity to enjoy my cozy, in front of the fireplace, meals with my husband rather than lugging ornaments upstairs for the tree.
But again, as I sculpt a Westie dog ornament, a shimmery blue Elfsicle and glittery eyed dragon ornaments, I mutter about how I just can NOT believe that I have not decorated the tree yet, so much so that even the cats are going "Come ON already, we get it. Bare tree, ok, shaddup."
I have several places I store the items I make, one of them is to the left of my desk. A metal wire shelf unit thing-a-ma-jig that houses our printers and batteries and most of my hanging ornaments.
To the right of my desk is our Christmas tree.
The universe could not have been any more obvious than if it had emailed me a detailed plan of action....and yet...I was blinded by Etsy lust and taco salad evenings watching the final episodes of Star Gate.
Until tonight.
You may have felt that shift in the universe, that subtle tingling along your extremities that means the slowly spiraling out of control earth, because it all revolves around my actions or in this case non-actions, was pulled back into it's regularly scheduled alignment.
Swear to Gawwwwwwwwwwd, after almost 2 weeks of a naked tree I was suddenly struck by an idea so simple and obvious and beautiful that it must have been some sort of divine intervention. It sparked to life like a match, flaring and building until I was so shocked by the obviousness I could no longer sit still. I hopped from my seat and stared at the tree.
Funny thing about instantaneous moments of sheer genius, they are hard to recollect after the moment passes. Alan and I can't remember who exactly said the idea first, he or me? Not that it matters, except it lends proof to the notion this idea just grew on it's own with no help from he or me at all.
Handmade, lovingly crafted ornaments sculpted by yours Truly hanging to the left of my desk, giant naked Christmas tree to the right....
And just like two atoms colliding there was a burst of pure radiant thought so clear and bright I am sure it illuminated the room. My husband and I basked in the radiance for only a minute before succumbing to the giddy delight of decorating our Christmas tree.
With all the handmade ornaments I had hanging to the left of my desk, moving them exactly 9 feet from the left to the right.
It was a beautiful moment, and perhaps just maybe the reason why it seemed so impossible to take the cache of regular Christmas ornaments stored in the garage up stairs.
Sometimes the universe confuses me, it makes me cut my finger on the cat food lid, spill my water on the remote controllers, sprinkle coffee beans around the kitchen with spazz-ing fingers all willy nilly as if I am the coffee bean fairy. Sometimes it causes coat hangers to damn near spit in my face defying my will and mocking me with their simple yet secretly evil existence. The universe has me trip on non-existent rocks in the middle of the living room floor and maneuver me in line behind strange people at the stores so I can fully experience their weirdness. The universe and me have a tempestuous relationship.
But I am thinking I now need to find a Christmas gift for it, as it has provided me with this simple but brilliant holiday tree decorating solution.
Now what does one get the Universe that equates to moving ornaments 9 feet?
Do you think it would like a scarf?

Rebellious Decorations!

Holiday decorations are cool!
No, I'm not slow that way. Just now in my almost 30th year realizing "HEY, every one is really on to something." I've actually been hip to this idea for years now....but I'm now just verbalizing my enjoyment of it all.
This whole decking the halls thing is a blast, it's like Christmas doesn't just come once a year, it explodes into our living rooms with the force of a small (albeit pretty) nuclear explosion.
Every last little bit of space, and even some spaces that are physics-ly impossible and shouldn't exist are trimmed out with garland and lights and bits of cinnamony smelling things that torture you with their home baked goody good scents. Not to mention mock you cruelly with their non-edible, glue based dough ways.
I just love it, I love the whole dang month. The fervor with which people will throw themselves in altering their daily homes and lives for the month of December. I love the millions of strands of pretty lights that go up. I squelch my other wise eco-friendly soul with a piece of chocolate anything and ooh and awww over all the neighbor's efforts. I look past the energy gobbling strands of lights, feeling only slightly superior with my own energy efficient LED ones and bask in the neighbor's good will.
I could give a hoot about them all the rest of year. Don't wanna see em, smell em, hear em or really even be aware of their existence but come Christmas time...tinsel and mistletoe infect my soul and I gaze upon their sloppily decked out decks with twinkling, sporadically flashing lights and feel a glow in my heart that is all about neighborly love and not a bit about the eggnog.
We some how squeeze all of our most handsome Christmas decorations, that are banished to storage for most of the year like a relative we're ashamed of and only drag out for *special* occasions, into our already overcrowded homes...and we LIKE it.
Everything looks better with a little ceramic Santa standing next to it doncha think? Doesn't matter if Santa has to suck his stomach in to fit next to the votive holder, the bowl of pretty stones, the vase of fake flowers, the clock and the cool wooden dragon. (all essentials to our daily life and couldn't possibly ever part with bits of pretty, that hold down the surface of the table all year.)
You might realize (in the back of your holiday humming mind) that a little side table is so full to the brim already that the ominous groaning is actually the foreshadowing of it's legs giving way and not in fact a ghost that you have to catch a recording of on your mp3 player......but it doesn't matter.
You slide in a an itsy bitsy, absolutely adorable wooden reindeer and suddenly it looks like a million bucks, like you channeled a designer for those 3 crucial reindeer sliding seconds and now that table is no longer cluttered and dusty but FESTIVE and FUN!
I love it!
Too much....hey don't blame me Alan does it too.
It was he who started it all....all innocently, giant baby blue eyes batting away one fine Christmas season past (as in the January AFTER a holiday) "That holly garland looks good there, we should leave it up."
Well he's right, it did look good, I mean it wasn't shouting "LOOK at ME I'm Christmas in July!" so we left it. And soon it was absorbed into the fabric of our every day lives as a normal and pleasant bit of eye candy around the window. Maybe a stranger or relative would see it as what it really is, a Christmas decoration that should have been taken down 5 years ago? I don't know, we don't let people into our home, that would spoil the effect we're going for.
And so with every holiday that passes the amount of decorations I have to pack up seems a little less, not insanely, qualify for an intervention less, but in all truth there's always a bit of Christmas that refuses to leave.
Who rebels against being smothered in bubble wrap, being silenced with it's tomb of cardboard and hidden away like a dark and dirty secret in the spidery depths of the garage.
It yearns to be free and live life with the elite of our decor, to experience a March, a July or dare I say it......even October.
So we have happy holly garland over the window, and a tiny little high spirited Santa ornament hangs near my computer and gazes lustily about in satisfaction at defeating the packing process. He's so tiny and stealth like he just slips into the background noise of our life.
The occasional strand of LED lights curls itself ever the more tighter around our ficus tree, it shows me the full glory of it's warm colours and begs with an articulateness that is astounding for a glorified electrical cord to be left free. To bring a little warmth to the room in an April. So I agree, but the lights on the bedroom window have a fit, in in a weirdly prissy accent demand to be left out as well, if the ficus lights stay in the living room then it shall have the bedroom and would I please call it Mr.Finkle as I offend it's sensibilities with my LED label....ummmm o.k.......it can stay.
Our pretty (year round) twig tree that makes me feel like nature has burst forth in our living room, reclaiming a bit of space that should have rightfully been it's own anyways looks glorious. Dripping in pretty icicles, that thanks to modern technology can be hung and look perfectly frozen for...well...ever. They sparkle and shine and I turn a blind eye to their shimmeryness as I pack the not so fortunate Christmas decorations away.
Who wouldn't want a bit of holiday sparkle on a chilled evening in February?
I feel reckless and daring, like I am breaking a forbidden rule. The largely unspoken, agreed upon by many...
Though shalt not leave your holiday decorations up as regular decorations!
But ya know what? It feels good.
There's a certain joy we get from living life our own way and not necessarily by a calendar.
And more importantly...
the Christmas Police have yet to knock down my door for reckless and dangerous use of a holiday ornament.

Favorite Childhood Christmas Memory....

I feel I should premise my favorite Christmas childhood memory with the statement that I could care a hoot about Christmas morning. I care like, maybe a quarter hoot but all the rest of my hoot is for Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is what holds all the sparkling, fairy dusted memories for me. Christmas Eve is akin to the sensation of being on a roller coaster at the top of the climb, suspended for what seems like eternity before free falling into the rush and madness of Christmas day.
Actually what do you call that time of Christmas that exists between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning? You know the dark quiet time when Santa's already made his visit, the stockings are bulging with mysterious little objects that poke it out in odd bumpy shapes and there's slick red and white candy canes peeking from the top? When the family is still asleep but it's after midnight and I shouldn't dare open the living room door for a peek because there'll be "hell to pay" ever since the incident of the whole "santa just LEFT and went to bed half an hour ago why are you up at 1:30 am????????" The real question is did you actually think I slept? I'm not up, I'm STILL UP! It's the time between waking and sleeping when nobody was up but me, Christmas tween time! It's no longer Christmas Eve, it's not quite Christmas morning it's the sweet spot right in the middle.
Christmas Eve was the sweetest torture imaginable, I never slept a full night's sleep until I was 21 I believe, it might have even been 22. And even then I was sort of shocked and a little sad that I'd passed some invisible mile marker of life that let me sleep instead of laying in bed bicycle kicking, legs in the air, to try and tire myself out.
I didn't have to walk to school barefoot through 5 miles of snow but I did actually live in a time when us kids did NOT have televisions, video game systems let alone cd players in our bedrooms. So there was no mindless entertainment, no light on for that matter because that would give away the big secret that I was still awake. So no book reading, just bicycle kicking and listening to fascinating rustles from the living room and Christmas carols on the kitchen radio.
A time or two I dozed and it was like a Christmas miracle, up to 40 minutes at a time could wink away in a flash. 40 minutes is like 40 years on Christmas Eve. I'm not even sure you can call it actual sleep, if it was actual sleep why didn't I sleep for 4 hours, or 8? I think it was a childhood form of meditation, I bet I was doing what them monks do, slowing their heartbeats and if I'd sat outside in the snow I wouldn't have turned into a kid-sicle because of my monk like meditation techniques. Sweet.
Eventually time would pass.....it sure seemed like it wasn't but it must have as now I'm married, living in another country and no one can make me go to bed on Christmas Eve if I don't wannnnnnna....*chuckles nervously because she's not entirely sure her mama doesn't still have that power*
The house would be silent, the occasional creak from a cat prowling around, Christmas carols still playing on the radio. A perfect time to go exploring wouldn't you think? AHA! WRONG! Rookie mistake, sheesh you do not get out of bed half an hour after Santa's gone to bed, are you asking for another lecture??? Ever heard of REM sleep? Well I hadn't back then but my childish mind did know you have to wait a certain amount of time to make sure the parental units are 100% asleep. THEN you slip out of bed and start tippy toeing about. It's most likely 3:00 in the morning, I've given plenty of knuckle biting time for every one to be completely asleep but still every creak of the floor is a crack of thunder that booms "KID OUT OF BED! KID OUT OF BED!"
I ease open my door, and immediately damn this hallway. Damn it for being so longish and narrow, why do there have to be so many doors so close together at the end of it? Sure one of them's the living room, right beside my room but why does my parent's room have to be directly across from it? What cruel twist of design inspired this trap?
Worst of all, they shut the living room door, to discourage kids from poking about too soon and cats from playing Tarzan in the Christmas tree (again) not to mention ripping open presents prematurely. (the cats not me)
Even worse than the forbidding living room door that creaked and groaned and made as much noise as a marching band falling off a cliff was the fact my parents left their bedroom door open. Rats, all they have to do is open an eye and I'm caught.
Plan B if I can't just walk into the living room unaccosted by warning tones hollering "get back to bed" is to find a flashlight. Luckily I've memorized 90% of the creaky spots on the hall way and kitchen floor. What did you think I was doing all the those days leading up to this moment? Some kids dream of what would be under the tree, I was casing the joint.
The flash light in hand I literally crawled up the hall way, at this point I should say My parents were cool people, a quick holler of back to bed was all I was in for, I just liked adding all the drama for my own Christmas tween time entertainment. What fun would it have been if I just walked straight up to the living room door and opened it? None I tell you, belly crawling up the hall way beneath the level of the bed in my parents room till I had my nose jammed under the crack of the living room door...that was excitement.
We had some pretty good crack at our place, which is a bugger if you're worried about things like heating but for peeking at what Santa left....ohhh it was a perfect crack. A good inch and a half of face pressing space under neath the living room door. Nose freezing because the air was frigid under there, our house was heated by one wood stove which was located waaaaaay out in the kitchen, the further away from the stove the colder it got, shut a door for a couple of hours and it was literally freezing behind it. But I swear it made the coloured lights on the Christmas tree branches twinkle all the more. Well what I could see of the tree, an inch and a half provides a tantalizingly small view of the scene set by Santa. A bit of wrapping paper that looked unfamiliar, a mysterious object shrouded in shadows that hadn't been there when I'd gone to bed. That's it, so I sigh under the door and finally belly crawl backwards to the warmth of my bed to regroup.
3:30 am..........too early to wake my younger brothers up, it was bad enough I was awake they shouldn't have to agonize over each ticking second till the magical hour of 6 am when it was ok to start actually being *up* and waking the parents up. (I now realize it was pretty cool of them to get up at 6am, they never growled, just said put the coffee on and within minutes were up, putting the ginormous turkey we raised ourselves in the oven to start baking.) No, I decided, very maturely, let my little brothers sleep in till 4 am. They need the rest, I can pass a half hour by myself......I could pass it a lot better if I could get a decent peek inside the living room.
The crazy thing is I wasn't even thinking of the gifts I was getting, it was just the magic of it all, the whole scene, the tree loaded with ornaments, presents piled high under neath, stockings full, the perfect Christmas card look of it all before 4 kids, an unnamed number of cats and 2 adults wreaked Christmas morning havoc on the place.
Then a thought occurred this particular Christmas....a beautiful shiny thought like a luscious fruit on the forbidden tree bloomed in my mind. Logic said if I couldn't see in to the living room through the door what other way could I? There was the living room window I suppose.....Now I was in state of secret Christmas tween time glee, flashlight in hand I tippy toed my way around the mind field of squeaks to the kitchen, jammed my feet in to some one's rubber work boots which were only about 7 sizes too big for me.
You know some times my husband jokes that it doesn't seem like I come from Canada because I don't know how to dress for the cold. Perhaps he's right about that as I headed outside, 3-ish in the morning on Christmas, feet stuffed into rubber boots, no coat, no mitts, no hat or scarf, just my pajamas and a flashlight. I was brilliant, not thinking about hypothermia, not thinking about the fact no one in their right childish mind leaves the house in the middle of a Canadian winter to tramp through the snow around to the back of the house to peer inside the window at the Christmas scene. Well I never claimed to be of right mind. Luckily the only hardship I faced out there was icy cold water dripping down my neck, it wasn't Christmas snowing so much as Christmas raining. I remember the rain was cold but that's all, it didn't deter me as I clomped around the house to the living room window. God Bless snow drifts. As snow had piled up against the house enough that I could stand on it, extra water dripping from the eaves on to the back of my neck, flashlight held high to shine through the window (really it's a damn wonder I'm not a cat burglar)
And what did I see...well...mostly the Christmas tree, who's idea was it to put it in front of the living room window? That was daft! Sheesh, I could see around it a little, stockings were bulging from their hooks on the wall just as I imagined, The room was dark but for the shine of tree lights and the beam of my flashlight and it was beautiful. It was wonderful, a mostly obscured view of the Christmas scene but it was so worth the freezing walk outside at 3 in the morning to see it. I'm pretty sure that's what got me through to 4 am. Cuddled in bed munching on Christmas oranges a.k.a clementines or tangerines. We only bought them at Christmas time and to this day the scent of fresh oranges makes me think of Christmas. I think I plowed my way through half a dozen of the little suckers before I deiced it was appropriate to wake up one of my brothers. Michael is 4 years younger then me, which when I was a kid meant he was pliable and easy to convince getting up when he's sleepy is a brilliant idea.
Once he's conscious enough to understand he has to be VERY VERY VERY quiet or else (or else what who knows, he was always game to play along though and the unspoken threat and excitement was enough) he headed to the bathroom, tippy toeing like I urged him agreeing to meet back in my bedroom with more Christmas oranges so we could strategize and I could tell him what I'd learned. All still and quiet for about 30 seconds till I hear a sound as sharp and loud as a machine gun going off. RAT A TAT TAT TAT, RAT A TAT TAT TAT. WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS HE DOING?????????? Taking up a new hobby of metal smithing on his way to the bathroom? I flew out of my bedroom in a sort of half tippy toe run, shushing as loudly and quietly as I could to find my brother standing in the middle of the kitchen feeding the cats with dry cat food, pouring it on to a metal pan on the floor from a great hight of at least 2 feet. "stopppppppppp" I hiss. O.k., a born sneaker he was not. That's like a cop on stake out who likes to play a little drums in the back seat of the car to pass the time, maybe check the working condition of the sirens every few seconds.
I scurry him back to my bedroom and explain the finer points of sneaking during the Christmas tween time, like NOT dropping hard things on to metal objects at 4 in the morning. We come to an understanding over more clementines. During which time I also hatch an ingenious plan to actually get us INSIDE the living room. All we have to do is get our parent's bedroom door shut...*cough cough* did I say we? I meant he, all HE had to do was shut their bedroom door. Don't worry, it wasn't like I was throwing him to the wolves, I did explain the finer points of ever so cautiously pulling the door shut so as not to make a sound, and how he didn't have to latch it because that would make it click but instead just pull it until it held closed by itself by the door jam. I watched with enormous eyes and plenty of hand gesturing to encourage slow closing until the door was finally closed, then we froze for a good 30 seconds to see if they noticed...not a sound, not a rustle...not a peep.
Did I throw open the living room door and have my way with the scene? OF COURSE NOT? I'm no Christmas Tween time rookie. Remember that REM sleep thing we were talking about? Well chances are the minute sounds of the door closing might have stirred our parents enough that any new sound could waken them fully and result in us being caught red handed in the living room at 4 am. I was nothing if not a devious sister at Christmas time. We adjourned to my room to wait a full 15 minutes of silence before attempting phase two of getting a better look in the living room. (Being the generous sort I'd already loaned my brother the flashlight so he could peer under the door as I did. I didn't drag him outside in the freezing rain, that would have been going too far.)
At 4:15 am we attempted phase two, it consisted of him standing in the hallway behind me while I ever so carefully eased open the living room door. No person ever finessed an old squeaky door like I did that door, murmuring sweet nothings to it under my breath whilst I eased it open with the classic pull upwards at the same time routine so as to minimize the noise. Oh wait...that was only common knowledge to me you say?
Once the living room door was open a wide enough crack to allow a small, Christmas crazed child inside I took the flashlight from Michael and made him stand guard against cats, that's all we needed was for a cat to get in the living room and do all those crazy loud cat things like sniff things, purr and possibly meow....
I of course explained to Michael all the very good reasons it was he who had to stand outside, guarding the door against cats whilst I alone entered the Christmas Living room for a solo peek at heaven. I can't quite remember my reasoning, perhaps it was simply that I was older and I said so. I eased inside and closed the door behind me....Darkness but for the flashlight and tree lights. It was freezing cold, puffs of white out of your mouth as you breathe cold. But there were glorious mounds of presents with large tags in curvy print that said "Love Santa".
The stockings we'd so eagerly hung just a few hours ago really were as full and plump as they'd seemed from the living room window. Tasty looking candies practically spilled out of the tops. A long wooden toboggan for sledding down the hills out side leaned against the wall. Everything was beautiful, the air was sharply scented with the sweet smell of a real Christmas tree, every icy breath I inhaled was like I was standing in a forest. Knowing Michael would be growing impatient and possibly getting the urge to do some other insanely loud thing like open the fridge or something I backed out of the room as carefully as I entered. I touched nothing, not for fear of fingerprints but because the scene was perfect. It didn't need me meddling with it all. How could knowing what made that funny little square bump in my stocking make it any better?
I almost left the living room completely, shutting away the perfectness of an as yet untouched Christmas morning waiting to happen before I remembered my anxiously awaiting partner in Christmas tween time crime. I led Michael in to the room, kept a sharp eye on him as he was younger, a boy and also more prone to impulsive ideas like picking up a present to shake it....the impetuous fool.
When I had deemed he'd had enough time to stare in wonder as I had we backed out of the room, closed the door as carefully and quietly as we'd opened it, tippy toed back to my room to the growing pile of clementine orange peels and huddled under a massive pile of quilts to warm up. We grinned and chattered quietly over what we'd seen, munching on the apparently infinite number of Christmas oranges.
Time passed, 6 am rolled around and by this time our younger brother Jacob had been awakened to join us. We voted that Michael should again be the one to risk the most by waking the parents. I made the coffee.
Things become blurry after that, memories of the lights coming on and seeming overly warm and bright when the world was still pitch black out side, calling up the stairs to the attic room where my older brother Jason was surely PRETENDING TO BE ASLEEP? Getting the ok to open the living room door and raid our stockings, all of it fun, all of it sweet but none of it quite as magical as the tween time of Christmas when I was up by myself, as quiet and sneaky as a shadow. Getting a taste of Christmas before any one else. Christmas Eve is wonderful, Christmas morning is amazing....
but Christmas tween...............is perfect.

This photo is of our house in Canada one winter, not the winter of the Christmas memory but still...you get the point. The arrow shows the direction from the front door where I walked out, around the side all the way to the back where the living room window was.....just to see the Christmas scene.

My Christmas Nemesis.

I, like most people, have a Christmas nemesis. Nothing unusual there. However in my case it's a bit peculiar as my Nemesis, the Christmas one, is my Aunt. Nothing makes the holidays more stressful then casting dark eyed suspicious glances over the turkey at your own relative.
In my case it's not a fight over the wish bone from the turkey, the last piece of pumpkin pie or who gets to stuff snow down some one's collar (ahhh the good ol' days) that has caused a life long holiday rift between me and my Aunt. No it's...the gifts. Well actually the gifts are fine it's the damn wrappings.
For years as a young impressionable teenager, hepped up on Christmas clementines and Quality Street chocolates, I'd have to bear witness to my Aunt's presents....presents NOT presence..... I don't recall her ever actually coming to our place for the holidays. Not that it matters, her presence through her presents was strong. Her gifts were always so expertly wrapped that who gave a flying frig about what was inside the be-ribbioned, perfectly papered with mitered corners and precision taped packages.
My Mother upon seeing a package arrive from her sister was always all "ohhhhhhhh my ,how lovely, how divine, how much more wonderful then your own wrappings my inadequate daughter dear." O.k. so she might not have said that last part but I got the hint. Every ooh over my Aunt's gifts was a stab to my artistic heart, every ahhh of delight was a needle in my side, every breath of enamored amazement was like a full fisted punch to my face.
It got so bad that for years I admitted defeat with out even trying, her presents with their sparkling perfection were so beyond my own skills that I slapped some wrinkled paper around the gifts I wrapped, stuck some duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape or spit on it to keep it closed and called it good enough. All the while suffering under the mocking presence of the damn presents from my Holiday Nemesis.
THEN I moved out, I escaped the horrors of the holiday depression I experienced every year from my enemy. It's not that I was jealous of her amazing gift wrapping prowess or anything, I just really wished it was me with that talent and not her.
BUT I shall stress no more, in fact I'm taking her off my Nemesis list, I'm sure she'll be relieved...well if she actually knew she was my Holiday foe. I mean it's not the sort of thing one shares with a relative. "Oh how nice to see you, I'll get you next year, you're making my holidays a living hell!!!! Muahh ahhh ahhh (evil laugh..obviously)."
This year when gathering my materials to properly gift wrap the prezzies I was sending back home to Nova Scotia for my family I hit upon an idea that killed two birds with one stone.
NOTE: NO BIRDS WERE ACTUALLY KILLED, WITH STONES OR OTHERWISE IN THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG ENTRY!
I had amassed a collection of corn chip/potato chip bags that were non-recyclable and I was too guilt ridden to just throw in the garbage and I had presents to wrap....
a ha, you see where I'm headed don't you?
If I'm already mailing a huge box of gifts to Canada why not send Mother my garbage as well AND as the cherry on my sundae of brilliance...wrap the presents so cleverly so as to blow my Aunt's present wrapping mind. The fact that I could spend the money I saved on wrapping paper to buy myself something pretty...that's just my reward for cleverness.
Genius, go ahead, say it. I can take it.

So what you see above in the photo is a pile-o-prezzies wrapped in:

• corn chip bags
• potato chip bags
• lime fruit mesh bags
• plastic and mesh potato bags
• candy bags from Halloween candy
• department store plastic bags
• bits of cardboard from food packaging
• sour cream containers
• candy wrappers

I did use tape, I mean I'm a genius not a frigging miracle worker. I dare ya to go up and play your own little identification game and try to figure out what's made of what. Sorry Americans I gotta spot the Canadians a few extra points as the brands and logos will be less familiar to them. Hey maybe we ought to organize a garbage swap between our countries, that way we can wrap our prezzies down here in Canadian trash and Canadians can wrap theirs in American..eh?
So there you have it Auntie dear. I win, WOOOHOOOOO.
Perhaps the idea of wrapping presents in garbage is a bit peculiar, but it's not like I used banana peelings or something (haven't figured out how to get tape to stick to the skins...)
When you think about it wrapping paper has the most bizarre life span of anything in the known universe. It's whole lot in life is to look pretty, obscure the identities of presents and get demolished and thrown away.
So why not use stuff that was already destined for the trash, give it a second life?
For that matter why use wrapping paper at all, why not just stuff your holiday gifts up your shirt and let people yank them out? Fun for you, fun for the family and good for the environment.