Need a Little Christmas

I finally managed to mail my Christmas cards this evening.  Last night I went to the movies and saw the Rifftrax Christmas Shorts program.  That was fun and the most Christmas-y I’ve felt all month.  This December has sorta been more blah-blah-blah than ho-ho-ho.

I need to find some Christmas cheer this weekend.  Maybe I can find a few Christmas light displays or watch a few good Christmas specials.

Soggy Little Christmas

My Christmas holiday got off to a particularly cold and wet start.  Not just because of the atrocious weather outside, but the conditions indoors.  My bathroom pipes burst earlier this week in two different bathrooms on two different days.

Monday afternoon was freezing, and so was my house.  I had planned to take a shower and go somewhere warmer such as a bookstore, but the downstairs bathroom, which is the coldest room in the house, was so cold that the bathtub handles had frozen and couldn’t be turned.  I tried warming up the room and  thawing out the pipes by placing the space heater in there.

Big mistake.  Minutes later I heard a sharp knock followed by sounds of spaying water.  I managed to pull the space heater before it got fried. What followed was an hour of mopping in the bathroom and basement with old towels as well as tearing into the wall trying to get to the burst pipe.  That was followed by two trips in the frigid, evening weather to Lowes.  I had to make a second trip because my mini-pipe cutter actually snapped in two.

This is where I would like to stop and give a big sarcastic “Thanks a lot!” to the many previous habitants of my house for all their half-assery and numbskullery when making home “improvements”.  I’ve seen evidence of cheap, neglectful and outright stupid handiwork in the past, but whoever installed the bathtub over a wall register really scored the dumbass trifecta.

Oh, and putting an oversized chunk of drywall over the register thinking one nail will secure it doesn’t help either.  In fact, mashing up a big piece of drywall against a smaller register opening is probably what knocked the wall plaster loose from around the vent in the first place.  That’s not good. 

Why?  Because there is no insulation in the walls of this hundred year old white elephant structure, that’s why.  Cold air comes pouring through such openings.  Normally, that cold air would sink into the northwest room of the basement as it had been for years.  But last month I used spray foam to block those drafts.  So instead of sinking down the cold air was diverted over to the bathtub pipes.

And I ended up with wet, numb toes.

Then the next evening, as I was on the computer about to blog about what had happened, I again heard knocking sounds, but this time from upstairs.  And just as I was thinking, “It couldn’t be…” there came the sound of spraying water.

Once again my space heater was in the path of a deluge.  I managed to pull it away literally seconds before water gushed down from the ceiling, and right beside my computer desk.  So I ran and got a sheet of plastic to cover my printer and the rest of my computer equipment.

This was followed by more mopping upstairs, downstairs and in the basement.  And more frozen toes.  It turned out that the upstairs pipes where this geyser was coming from didn’t burst as much as the joints just popped apart.  However, I didn’t have the pipes and joints necessary for the repairs.  And because the ice covered roads were unsafe to drive on, all I could do was keep the main water valve turned off and let the water trickle out of the downstairs bathtub spigot until morning.

So early Christmas Eve morning, instead of getting ready to leave for Indiana, I drove to Menards and bought any conceivable half-inch copper joint, valve or soldering supplies I imagined possibly needing, even if I was sure I had enough at home.  I didn’t want to have to stop in the middle of what I was doing because I ran out of flux.

I repaired four different pipes in the upstairs bathroom.  It seems two others I hadn’t noticed had also burst.  A shutoff valve had shot off the end of one.  But only a little trickle of ice had formed on the ends of both pipes.  I don’t understand why water didn’t came pouring out of those two.  I’m just thankful it didn’t.

I’m also thankful the water didn’t have a chance to drench some questionably routed old wiring I’d discovered while mopping.  In the past, I’ve considered just stripping the rooms down to their studs and doing things over from scratch.  It will be messy and time consuming, but there will be walls coming down in this house.  And, heck, if a developer does approach me in the future about purchasing my property, I’ll have already started some of his demolition work for him.

Afterwards, I ran a couple additional errands.  Pouring rain and last minute Christmas shoppers are not a good mix.  I got more foam covers to insulate the pipes.

The rest of the day I anticipated the sounds of spraying and dripping.

But nothing happened.

Christmas Day, I headed to Indiana, listening to a disappointing audio book.  I don’t want to name the title, but it turned out to be one of those ya-ya sisterhood type stories involving a young, ambitious female attorney who had lost her sense of self, she-ness or whatever you lose when you’re wealthy and discover your fiance has been cheating on you.  Yet lady lawyer had a grandma full of folksy wisdom that helped the lady lawyer rediscover herself and find true love.  Yick.  It’s not that it was chick lit.  If a story is well told, I’m all for cheese and sap.  But after a few chapters I was heckling the narration and snarking on the lady lawyer’s dialogue.

I stopped imagining my house not sustaining water damage long enough to enjoy the holiday. Improved weather and being in a warm, dry house helped.  Mom and I watched the HGTV Christmas specials.  I especially liked the one featuring department store windows.

The family get together the next day was good.  I thought we were going to move the printing and embroidery machinery over to Mom’s business.  That’s what she had said she wanted for Christmas, but the shop still needed cleaning up and she decided that could wait.  What she wanted was everyone together under one roof.  The only problem was that my brother had mistakenly thought we weren’t exchanging ornaments this year because several of us like myself were facing tighter budgets.

He confronted my mother about this miscommunication.  It didn’t escalate into anything big.  He just wanted Mom to know it hurt him not to be giving presents on Christmas when he could have.  His voice cracked.  He was really hurt.  And Mom’s voice cracked saying she was upset that she had hurt his feelings.

For my WASP-y family, this was a major altercation.  Feeling I had to difuse the situation, I tried joking with him. “Hey, don’t worry.  You can always get me something for Valentines.”  Yeah, that bombed, as you can expect.  But, really, once he had almost sobbed, it was all out of his system and that was the end of it.

I suggested he and I could go over to the new shop and clean up the lumber and whatever else needed to be taken to the garage and put away.  Doing that helped.  He excelled at making sure everything was as cleaned, swept and put away as possible.  Carrying things out to the garage wasn’t that bad. The weather was damp, but it was so warm, almost like Spring.  In the end, the business was ready to be moved into.

I had to head back to Dayton later that night.  Mom wished I could spend an extra day, but understood I had to make sure my house was okay.  However, she wondered when she’d be able to get the Christmas tree taken down.  Would I be able to come back in February?  So I, she and my aunt managed to take down the tree and box all the ornaments and other Christmas decorations and put it all away in the garage in just an hour.  Major accomplishment considering It took me over six hours to put up and decorate the tree a few weeks ago.

All the way home I imagined what water damage could be awaiting me.  I tried listening to the audio book again, but could only tolerate a couple chapters.

But when I returned home all was calm.  All was dry.

Celebrating and Decompressing

For all the stress and lack of festive ornamentation this December, I managed to have a nice Christmas. 

Because my brother had a company dinner to attend on the 26^th, my family exchanged presents on the 23^rd.  We also watched football and ate too many of my mother’s famous cinnamon rolls.  Personally, I prefer having large holiday gatherings on any day except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  The family gets a chance to spend an afternoon and evening together under one roof.  No one has another household they’re on a tight schedule to get to.   

I live out of state away from my family and am not able to visit much.  What news I get is mostly from my mother’s e-mails, and that’s how I heard about many of the last few months’ ordeals, so it was a gift in itself to see people getting better. My brother-in-law who suffered a compound fracture and was almost killed in a head-on collision in late summer has regained more mobility sooner than I expected.  His leg wasn’t in a cast, and he can bend it now, although he needs a walker to get around. One niece’s cancer treatments have been successful, while her mother, my sister-in-law, seems ever so slowly to be regaining her strength after a series of corrective back surgeries.   It was also good to see my other niece happier.  She’s an intelligent girl, but her weight has made her the target of many insensitive remarks.  But the week before she attended her first formal dance, and looking at the pictures and hearing stories about that night, it was nice seeing her smile again. 

Mom has recently purchased the little house next door so as to expand her custom sewing and embroidery business.  Good for her as well as good for the neighborhood.  That property had been abandoned and neglected for too long.  I had planned to come up later in January to help paint, but Sunday night I mentioned getting an early start. 

“On Christmas?” she said.

“Might as well,” I said. “I won’t be doing anything else.” 

So on Christmas Eve we shopped for paint and brushes at Lowes.  We were supposed to only make a brief stop into Meijers for groceries and because Mom wanted the new Josh Grobin and Manheim Steamroller CDs.  However, we ended up spending several minutes looking at all the discounted gift boxes and Christmas cards.  They had a very nice selection of the latter this year, and Mom was delighted with this series of Thomas Kinkade-type greeting cards, specifically the lids of the decorative boxes they came in.  They were decorated with the same images as the cards, but the lids came with a red button that would activate a series of tiny LED lights.  Press a button and the lights behind the candles and the fireplace on one flickered for several seconds.  On another one the tiny windows of a snow-capped cottage would glow.  There were others with Christmas tree lights or front door wreaths or the “O” in the word JOY blinking.   Mom saw so many possibilities not just for the boxes as gift boxes, shadow boxes or a decorative accessory, but for the miniature LED lights as well.  Those bright low energy sources of illumination have made an impression on my mother these last two months.  It all started when she found a white Christmas tree that came decorated with blue LED lights.  She was upset that even the display tree had been sold. 

One thing that I love about my mother is what a gadget-head she can be.  Not exactly the Little Old Lady from Panasonic.  You’d never find her camping out in front of an Apple store, but I never hear her complain about how back in the old days her generation didn’t need computers or satellite radio.  In fact, later that night she wanted me to examine her television cabinet and see if I could think of a way to remove enough of the sides so she might install a HD plasma or LCD widescreen.  As much as she says she’s only pondering the idea, I believe it’s only her love of that cabinet that has kept her from buying a 50-inch flatscreen.   And unfortunately it only fits in that one corner of the living room.  We measured. 

But really it’s the gadgets that make cooking more efficient and expand her craft creativity that my mother loves most.  And if it can be accomplished with one push of a button then all the better.  She’s also the only person I know that shares my interest in green technology innovations.  The boxes were still a little pricey for her, even at 15% off; but she did manage to leave with one, along with promises to buy more the day after Christmas.   

After getting what we needed and heading toward the checkout lanes, I remembered I had forgotten to pack my pair of sweatpants and I asked, since Mom was in the business of custom clothes printing now, if she might have an extra pair of sweats I could buy from her at cost.  If not, I would try and find a cheap pair while at the store.  She didn’t have any but insisted on finding me a pair.  We couldn’t find any except for sizes 3XL.  And I would think those would be the first size to sell out.  Who else would need pants with an elastic waistband more than someone who wears size 3XL? Anyway, that became an hour delay getting home while she stopped into Wal-Mart and then Sears where she finally found a couple large sizes on sale.  I mention it because I was touched she took the trouble.  And, yes, I could have worn my jeans; but after all those famous cinnamon rolls and with chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes still leftover from the day before, wearing sweatpants felt a little more comfortable. 

Ah yes, comfort.  With a side order of relaxation.  I hadn’t realized how much stress that had been collecting in my body until Christmas Eve night and noticed how at ease I felt.  Even the marrow in my bones felt relaxed.  Maybe it was not having to be anywhere.  Maybe it was all the starchy food.  But I felt good. 

It sounds odd to say I was content spending Christmas Day in an empty house entirely alone, and yet that’s what I did.  I sang Christmas tunes to myself as I put up blue painting tape and applied two coats of Amber Waves in one of the rooms in the house next door.  Mom came over once complaining that my Aunt M was changing channels too much and worried the walls looked too yellow; but I assured her it was because the paint was still wet.  By the time I finished cleaning up it was after midnight; but I ate chocolate so I could be awake when Meijers opened up (or so I told myself) and get those card boxes for Mom at 50% off because I knew she wasn’t going to wake up.  I even bought some gift boxes for myself, even though I shouldn’t have.  I have lots still at home from post Christmas sales past.  I expected to have to fight off crowds.  I even drove to the store with the windshield not completely clear and the defroster not warmed up, expecting to fend off and outrun early bargain hunters headed for the same card boxes as me.  But, no, the store was practically void of shoppers.  An indication of upcoming economic conditions?  Perhaps.   

I crashed until afternoon.  While I had been painting, Mom had been taking ornaments off the tree.  Everything, tree and all, was ready to be taken to the garage and stacked away.   Before I headed back to Ohio we walked next door to see how the paint had dried and, yes, the walls were now the butterscotch tone she had selected.  Then there was one more dinner—turkey meatloaf, peas and the last of the leftover mashed potatoes—and I was gone.

I love Christmas. I just wish I had time for it.

Back in July, when this year’s first assortment of Hallmark ornaments hit the stores, I had a plan in mind, a yuletide tasking strategy; and it seemed doable.   I love Christmas, and yet these last four years I haven’t found time to decorate.  Collecting Christmas ornaments and indoor decorations has been my hobby for over two decades; but lately by the time December has rolled around the only seasonal thing I’d have accomplished was mailing my Christmas cards. 

But this year I was determined to make at least one room in my house look festive again.  The plan was to bring the three Christmas trees out of the attic the day after Halloween.  That way I’d have plenty of time to splay all those dozens of artificial branches and hang the lights and beaded garland.  I could do it before and after work and on the weekend while listening to the television or podcasts.  I saw that taking a week.

That would leave at least two weeks—a full fourteen days—to unpack all those green and red Rubbermaid totes.  Unwrap the ornaments from Christmases past from their tissue paper and bubble wrap cocoons.  Then empty this year’s ornament purchases from department store and gift shop sacks and boxes before then going to the Hallmark store and getting those ornaments out of layaway.

And I’d have plenty of level, horizontal surfaces set up for my ever-growing collection of Christmas ornaments and not be left finding room on the sofa and chair cushions and the ottoman or the entertainment center as I had before.  Not this guy.

All those painting and patching home improvement projects I was in the middle of would all be completed by October.  Yesiree.  By December 1^st I would be admiring my tree decorating handiwork before sitting down and watching my Mystery Science Theatre 3000 DVD of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”

And how did that work out?  Well, let’s just say I was a few weeks off.  I did get the Christmas trees out of the attic, but it was the day before Thanksgiving.  And that was right after having finally finished the last of those home improvement projects.

For weeks all the pieces of my Christmas holiday have been sitting downstairs, and still at the “some assembly required” phase.  The trees are up, though bare.  My living room is crowded with tables set with over 940 tree ornaments (Yes, I counted.).  That ninety-nine dollar lighted gumdrop snowman I just had to buy five weeks ago?  I haven’t even taken it out of the box.  I still have three stacks of unopened storage totes full of lights and tabletop snowpeople and angels and wall hangings.  I didn’t even start mailing my Christmas cards until last week, and I’ve never been that late.

While others are procrastinating gift shoppers, I worry I may becoming a procrastinating tree decorator.  And I also worry because this year, deep down, I’m not feeling all that guilty about it.

When I was making my grand plans I didn’t take into account how much of a cluttered mess months of home improvement would leave.  And putting up eight foot trees in my living room and entryway didn’t help. And so all this December I’ve been sorting through piles of various sizes and putting tools and materials back in their proper places, or making new spaces for them.  This past weekend, when I could have been decorating my trees, I assembled bookshelves instead—and put them right to use.  Half the home improvement projects were meant to better insulate this drafty money pit where I live, and it seems to be working.  Hardly hearing my checking account-gobbling furnace rumble to life this month has been almost as sweet a sound as a children’s choir singing “Silent Night”. 

And yet there would have been something comforting about coming home from the night shift and weeks of mandatory overtime to a lighted Christmas tree.

Maybe what I worry about most is that this year I’ve realized how easy it has become not to celebrate Christmas.  Sure, this Sunday I’ll be back at my mother’s house in Indiana exchanging gifts with the rest of my family.  I’ll be with her on the 25^th, and I’m sure more relatives will stop by to say hello.  Being with family is important during the holidays.  I guess I’ll have three days to celebrate Christmas, though I wish it could have been longer. 

Oh well, maybe next year.