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We put up our Christmas tree this week. It took all day. Well…mostly. We did school in the morning and then after lunch we began. First to pick up all of the toys that the two younger boys had flung around while my oldest was doing Kindergarten work. Then to vacuum… Except that the hunky hubby had gotten on one of his dusting and organizing kicks. Now the hunky hubby and I have completely different approaches to housework. I am very functional. Clean what you can see, fast, every day. And what you can’t see… YOU CAN’T SEE!
The hunky hubby is more of a perfectionist and that is why he doesn’t clean very often. I tidy and clean the house so that we can live and breathe freely every day, and he helps out. But occasionally he freaks out and begins to dust and organize and move furniture to vacuum behind it. This happens right before we are doing a project (putting up a Christmas tree or painting) and it takes forever! I am always gnashing my teeth in the corner thinking of all of the surface cleaning that could be done if he had only set his sights a little broader. The whole house could appear immaculate, instead we got one four by two corner where all of the movies were dusted and organized, the tv was dusted and vacuumed behind, and the entertainment center was repaired where the backboard was falling off, and the old candle wax was scraped off of our wall scounces, dusted, and new candles added and lit.
It looks great and it needed to be done, and it never would have been done if he hadn’t freaked out on me and taken the four or more hours needed to do it. Sigh, we are so different. Who knows maybe we are a good team or something. Aaaargh! Anyway… By 6:00 that night we finally hauled in the trees. One big one for our tiny living room (right next to the beautifully organized tv) and a teeny tiny one that the boys wanted for a night light in their room. We stayed up far past bedtime wrestling with lights and finally leaving the little tree leaning jauntily in its stand and praying that the boys wouldn’t notice and start crying over the lack of symmetry…straightness…something. We listened to Christmas music and ate Papa Murphy’s desert pizza. We didn’t quite get finished, but we got the lights on and the trees up in about 2.5 or 3 hours and tucked 3 happy and exhausted boys into bed. A great day, and a beautiful if slightly child-maimed tree, and one extremely well dusted corner. Good times.
