Those 70ish Girls

I was going through my week with a reasonable amount of serenity. I wasn’t going to put up Christmas decorations this year because we didn’t get home from our trip until after Thanksgiving and the very next day, I was already behind. Our daughter is having Christmas Eve at her house, so mine really doesn’t have to be decorated.

Then I went to my friend Pat’s house. She already had her 13 plus Christmas trees up and her whole house decorated. I helped her with the yard for about 15 minutes. I didn’t ask her, but I’m sure she has all of her shopping done too. This morning at church, she told me she was still decorating. “For heaven sake what?” I asked. “Are you decorating your decorations?”

“No,” she said. “There are still a few things in the house that don’t have a bow or something on them.” She has a wonderful house to accommodate all of the decorations, and her creativity is amazing. She made a beautiful winter scene out of the styrofoam that was in the box their new television set came in. I’m not kidding. I never would have guessed. Her decorating is never overdone. It’s always beautiful. It’s a place people like to go just to look at everything and be instantly transformed from whining about having so much to do, to thinking, “How in God’s creation does she do all this? I should be able to put up one little tree!”

My  son and granddaughters at Pat and Jerry’s house last year

Pat’s husband Jerry helps haul the crates to the house and back again when everything gets packed away in mid January. I’m always surprised when I go to their house and Jerry doesn’t at least have a bow on his head and a candy cane in his mouth, but so far he’s escaped.. Quite frankly, he’s starting to look a little out-of-place.

Where was I going with all of this? It’s not what I had intended to write about. Oh yes… I decided after seeing Pat and Jerry’s house, I would at least put the tree up, so I did that last night. I looked around the house this morning, and it looked really pitiful with just the tree, so I decided to put my nutcracker collection out. I always put them on top of the kitchen cabinets, which means I have to take everything already up there down, and dust the shelves. (I really only do this because Kip is usually watching football in the living room and he can see me. I want to show him that I do dust.) I really hate dusting.

I was in the middle of all that when I checked my email, which told me I had a message from a Murdo Girl reader. The message included a picture. She said she found my perfect Christmas hat at Walmart. You guessed it. It was a Santa hat with a crown.

So here’s what I did. I dropped everything and drove to my Walmart. I looked all over that store. I searched through everything and I found lots of hats, so of course I had to look at every one of the 100 or so choices looking for…The one with the crown…I left hat and crown-less. When I left home, I told Kip I just had to have that hat. I told him it would probably only cost what? $6.00 tops? Don’t tell him this, but I would have paid at least $30.00 if I could have found it. Did I go home? No..I went to Family Dollar, Dollar Gentril, (as my friend Laura calls it), and Goodwill. No one had a Santa hat with a crown on it.

Thanks Pat and Kerri. I almost had a stress free Christmas. You two set the bar way too high. I’m only halfway through dusting and putting up nutcrackers, and I could have probably found several gifts in the time it took me to search for the crown hat.

But, all is not lost. I got really creative like my friend Pat. I’m exactly where I always am this time of year…Loonier than a Looney Tune.

Give me a little break. I left my real crown locked up in the RV and I forgot to buy a TV at Walmart to get some styrofoam.

BTW..Kip decided he’s going to put up just one of his outside decorations…Buahaha!