I love Christmas. Not the whole crazy materialistic part - but the trees and the lights and the music. It makes me happy. This year, at every turn, we seriously failed Christmas. It's not even funny.
The tree. My husband brought home a little Charlie Brown tree. We kind of have to have one that size so we can prop it up on the table and keep Lucien away from the ornaments. Yeah, that didn't work. Lucien pulled all of the needles off the bottom branches and I had to move all of the ornaments to the top of the tree. I have a collection of little gems that we've had in the family since I was a child, but I only ended up putting about 10 on the tree for fear that Destructo would ruin them. Also, it's about 400 degrees in our apartment, so the tree died almost immediately after we brought it in the house. I'm not kidding.
The cookies. Every year my step daughter and I make gingerbread men. This year, we were so busy I thought we would take a shortcut and make some Pillsbury sugar cookies. Yes, a mix. I am the worst mom, ever. These things sucked. Lesson learned. Then my step daughter went to town on the frosting - and what resulted was the most horrifying looking cookies, ever. I can't even say that they tasted good. Next year we'll be one-upping ourselves with a gingerbread Chrysler Building or something to make up for this atrocity.
The presents. I got all the goodies together in the living room the day before Christmas to wrap, while the family was distracted in the other room. I laid everything out, began to wrap, and pulled the last piece of tape from the dispenser on the first gift. No tape! I stapled all of the presents shut. I'm not even kidding.
Oh well. There was this, which kinda made up for everything...