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Norman Christmas anything but normal
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Published: November 15, 2007
Decking the halls just wasn't as glamorous in an apartment.
We hung our stockings from the kitchen bar. Christmas lights outlined the vertical blinds that led out to our closet-sized "deck." The tree was tucked into the corner beside the futon.
This year we're homeowners.
I admit I was a little too excited when I sat up our pre-lit artificial tree on Thanksgiving morning. I was a little too adamant about decorating it as soon as my husband and I had a few free moments.
I think my husband knew that crazed look in my eye could get out of hand.
He was the one that made the rule that I couldn't decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. (That didn't stop me from sneaking out the stockings and holders a few days early.)
I crafted such grand plans for our first Christmas in our first house. Tinsel, garland, twinkling lights, warm baking smells wafting through a home filled with carols and Linus' monologue.
We returned from visiting family for Thanksgiving to find our tree brutally strewn across the living room, a trail of fake pine needles wrapping through the kitchen to the laundry room.
Our never-been-outside cats apparently tried to climb the electrified conifer with disastrous results. In sheer panic, they skidded across our laminate floors until they reached the safety of the crevice behind the washer and dryer.
The tree stand was contorted in such a way that it couldn't be corrected. It now uses the wall as a crutch.
A couple days after we decorated our crippled, fake tree, the cats found a way to unravel a few of the ornaments, leaving the silky string wrapped around every table and chair leg in the house.
I've even had to squirt those bad cats when they try to use the lights as floss. (Is it dangerous to use a squirt gun when they chew on electrical wires?) I pictured coming home to a stench and an outline of poor Rocky or Smalls under the chair like that cat from the Griswold's "Christmas Vacation."
With that I laughed and had a revelation deserving of those Christmas cartoons.
I will never have a Norman Rockwell Christmas, but a Norman Christmas will do just fine.
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