With a little scrounging, a little thrift-shopping, and a little swearing, I got the tree all festive today. Didn’t get to shoot anything at it via compressed air, however. Maybe next year.
I started ratting around in my craft-crap bins and realized that I had a crapton of tinsel garland that I’d pulled out of a dumpster years and years ago. So of course that went on the tree. It was, for the record, brand new tinsel garland, still in the original plastic zipper bags. I forgot how much I like the scent of tinsel garland. It has a particular plasticky, tinny aroma that nothing else does.
Despite not being very decorate-y people, Joel and I have a positively ludicrous number of strings of lights between the two of us, so the tree is now festooned with four of them:
Seeing as this sucker is 7′ tall, four strings of lights is just the right number.
I had a bunch of stuff I needed to take to the thrift shop this morning: clothing Joseph had outgrown and stuff of mine that I hadn’t worn in even distant memory and would probably never wear again, honestly. Things that were either too juvenile, or else just too ugly, even for my own questionable tastes. Anyway, while we were at the thrift shop, I picked up a couple of random bags of colored baubles for the tree, since I had none. I had some other ornaments: wooden soldiers, a pretty brass carousel, snowflakes of stamped stainless steel, and other family keepsakes, but I didn’t have the basic colored-balls-on-a-hook that one typically associates with tree decorating. Fortunately, you can get a good-sized sack of them for all of a dollar.
While I was at it, I also acquired a decent winter hat for Joseph:
I’ve been looking for a good, warm hat for the little chap since well before the weather turned cold, and haven’t been able to find anything good. Most of the baby hats on offer are just flimsy little cotton jersey beanies. They’re okay for around the house if you don’t keep your house very warm (we don’t) but simply won’t cut it outdoors in Kansas winter. This one, however, is quite acceptable. It’s an acrylic/wool/angora blend and is double-layered and fairly tightly knit. This ought to keep his little ears from freezing off the sides of his head!
Don’t know why it’s so hard to get a decent baby hat around here. Apparently people either don’t relinquish them to the thrift shops, or else nobody buys them in the first place. I’d be less surprised if we lived someplace with really mild winters, but it gets capital-c Cold here. I guess maybe there’s the assumption that you’re only taking your kid from the house to the car, from the car to the house or something, but we’re out on foot pretty much daily (though to be honest on the really cold days, our walks are pretty brief). For that, you want a good warm hat, along with a fleecy snowsuit. I bundle the little fellow up quite snugly, then I bungie him to me with the Moby Wrap, so he gets the benefit of my body heat and my coat, too. Occasionally old ladies will tut me for taking him out in the weather, but honestly, he’s so layered up and snuggled down that he’s not the slightest bit bothered by the cold.
Tree = you done good! If you have crafty or sewing friends at all they will be delighted to make a baby hat. They are the quickest projects around. And doubleplus cute factor.