So this morning I finally took down my Christmas tree and I can’t help but feel like somehow the Christmas tree won. I can’t really explain it but it’s like I lost a battle-of-wills to an inanimate plastic object. This is the way my whole damn year has been.
PS. A bunch of people on twitter yesterday suggested that since yesterday was Star Wars Day I could leave it up and call it a “Life Day Tree” but I don’t think a fake plastic tree is very life affirming except in the most sarcastic and ironic of ways. Unless there were hipsters on Star Wars. Star Wars Hipsters would be all over that shit.
PPS. A bunch of people on twitter also suggested that I might be a hoarder but I can assure you that I am a tosser (not the British version), but now all the hoarder-helpers think I’m in denial so I’m including before-and-after pictures of my living room so people stop threatening interventions.
Living room this morning, when I was still winning:
And my living room now:
PPPS. You know how after you take down your tree after Christmas and there seems to be an empty spot for a few days because you’ve been used to having it up for a month? Well when you take it down after a half of a year it feels like some has stolen a large piece of furniture. It feels like I’m missing a chifforobe or a walk-in freezer and I keep thinking “Wait, was there a walk-in freezer in here?” and then I remember that it was just the tree and now I feel like I’m missing a tree and a living-room walk-in freezer. This day could not get any worse.
PPPPPS. Does it count as “taking down the tree” if I just drug dragged the whole thing into the garage and left it where Victor parks his car? I say yes.
Star Wars is ALL about hipsters! Boba Fett is the more hipster than anything except maybe a black turtle neck!
Totally counts. Victor can now park his car where the Christmas tree was (just make sure he doesn’t run over any useless and/or guiltless cats.)
I suggest you take the tree in the corner and move it over to the Christmas Tree spot. He’s probably felt like the redheaded step-child tree since December when you gave the Christmas Tree the space with the great view. Ask the cat to help.
I can’t stop looking at your living room and thinking how nice it is. Tree or no tree.
I’m more concerned that you have a picture of the Sunmaid Raisin lady in your hallway.
Chiffarobe? Not since “To Kill a Mockingbird” have I enjoyed this word. Kudos. And that does NOT look like the house of a hoarder. The house of no-good, slovenly cats, maybe, but we all have those. Sorry ’bout your tree withdrawal.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but you COULD have put little flags on the tree for Memorial Day. Who says it HAS to be a Christmas tree? It could serve as a multi-occasion tree (maybe figurines or railroad workers and Teamsters for Labor Day?)
Why did you drug your tree?!
cats are generally unhelpful. even polydactyl cats. i have four and between them all they can’t figure out how to do anything expect fight, wake me up in the middle of the night, and piss on the floor out of spite.
well, the one who pees on the floor is like 80-something in human years. but to be fair, my grandpa died at 84 and didn’t piss on the kitchen floor.
Damn woman, that’s a nice living room.
We used to place our Kentucky Derby bets along with bets on when the neighbors would take down their Christmas Wreath… although with a TREE, I think you win.
Yes, it does count– it’s spring. Victor doesn’t need to park his car in the garage in the spring. If you don’t leave the car out for spring showers, how are you supposed to wash off the winter’s accumulation of road salt? Oh. Wait. You live in Texas. That doesn’t work. Unless you live near a salt factory that only runs in the winter. Do you live near a salt factory?
Well, if you do…then the tree goes where the car does. And when it’s time for the car to go back in the garage, then that means it’s time to put the tree back up! That’s how we roll in my house.
no 1!
I was going to stage an intervention based solely on the fact that you left your Christmas tree up so long, but since I’m useless BY choice that would actually be counterproductive. For me. I think I need better drugs.
The garage was a nice touch. He’ll never guess it was you. Because only the cat is in the photo.
((relieved cuz I thought this was gonna be a post involving dead bodies))
happy holidays!
I’m convinced that you’re not a hoarder. But if you’re going to just drag your tree to the garage for storage, why didn’t you leave the lights and ornaments on it? That’s what my mom used to do – of course she wrapped it in a sheet so it wouldn’t get dusty. Not kidding.
So you drugged your tree and locked it in the garage? You got problems, woman. (The garage is the first place the cops are gonna look…)
My cat Hamish would have totally sat there supervising and judging me and making threats to dock my pay if I didn’t do it his way and more quickly. And in ways that included feeding him tuna.
If you get a real tree they’ll take it down for you the day you put it up.
What kind of drugs did you give your tree? The good stuff like meth or perhaps an 8 ball? Because marijuana seems too close to the tree family in a smoker’s cannibalism way.
Don’t act like that didn’t make perfect sense.
This is why we will never, ever get a plastic tree. If my wife drags the real tree out where I park my car, I can burn the tree without feeling all enviro-nasty. Well, a little, since it is doubtful either of us would take off the lights if it got to this point.
I think I need to get y’all the sister to our Halloween Spider. She’s 8′ across, inflatable and purple. I have considered over the years trying to find Christmas stockings and a Santa hat to put on her so I can keep her up from 10/1 until January.
Perhaps we could figure out the appropriate attire so she could stay up year round – possibly with the help of Cupid’s bows and arrows, Easter eggs etc.
Girl, just string some lights on the other damn tree and WA LA! No need to ever put up a Christmas tree again. You’re medication makes you foggy on all the wrong things.
Ok…
You only just took down your Christmas tree… is that allowed? if so I have a husband that needs beating
Long time lurker, 1st time poster!!!
What about putting a trap door in the floor and a hydraulic lift so that the tree could rise up on Christmas Eve like in the Nutcracker. Then you could just flick a switch and it would go back down?
Now you’re winning in the garage. It’s still winning, and Victor can just park in the livingroom.
You clearly are not a hoarder, there needs not to be an intervention for that. I’ve seen that show a time or two and those houses have rotting melons on the floors, melons the hoarder folk claim to love and cherish. Stunning grande room you have there, especially with the cat in it.
Maybe you just fill the empty space with something else. Something not so season-specific. Like a store mannequin that you can dress in festive outfits. Or a gigantic poster of Will Weaton collating paper.
PS – Those cats are adorable. I also have a cat with additional thumbs ON ALL FOUR FEET, and he, too, is USELESS.
PPS – Yes it counts. Never doubt yourself.
Did you try asking the cat NICELY?
@Misfit Mommy – fucking genius idea!
In a house full of young 22 year old boys, my Christmas tree often gets replaced with a keg cooler so be happy you don’t have to deal with *THAT*.
Your living room is palatial. I live in a hobbit hole under the ground, so you can trust me when I say, the only way that is the home of a hoarder is if the tree you stashed in the garage was once a living tree.
“It’s still good! We could use this for crafting!”
Don’t be dissin on the Posey boy. Dude rocks in the cat world. And I personally would have left the tree up. It brings a little of the outdoors in….well, in a plastic, non-living, non-oxygen producing, really unhelpful to the human race kinda way.
Instead of a Christmas tree, I have a massive pile of boxes taking up a 10’x10′ in my living room, and my cat believes it is a castle, just for her. She attacks anyone who walks by. Its becoming hazardous, and my dogs wont go near it. And she doesn’t have any thumbs, too!
Total bonus points for using chiffarobe… I think the new tree placement is perfect. The tree didn’t win, you moved it’s location, totally not a win…
If you put some lights and garland all around that chair outside, it might help to ease the pain of your loss. It might also convince Victor that you have really lost it, but you have to run a cost/benefit analysis in situations like these.
I love that you have tile in your living room. I may have to show my husband this picture. He doesn’t think tile is appropriate for anything but kitchens and bathrooms.
My cats are worse than useless. I’m pretty sure that if I tried to enlist the demon-cats help in taking down my tree, not only would they NOT help, after I had gone to bed, they’d probably sneak out to the shed, bring it back in, and put it back up again, just to piss me off. With hairballs for ornaments.
Assholes.
Also, you can have a year-round tree. Just decorate it for whatever holiday/season is coming up.
When it comes to helping around the house, your cat is such a pussy.
I read an piece in Southern Living (yes I read Southern Living, STOP JUDGING ME) about this trend of keeping the tree up and just decorating it for every holiday…or event. Just think, you could have had a Star Wars day tree…today you could have a Cinco de Mayo tree!! A Labor Day tree..at tree to celebrate Flag Day! Then you could just start making up holidays, I suggest National Hooker Appreciation Day, followed by National STD Awareness Day, just think of the tree decorating possibilities!!
I always rearrange the furniture right after I take down the Christmas tree for just that reason. Well, mostly for that reason. Also partly because my husband refuses to put anything on over his whities when he gets up in the middle of the night and we don’t have curtains or blinds, so when the tree’s not there I feel like I should drag the couch in front of the window to protect the neighbors.
Which is actually a good reason to leave the tree up year-round, now that I think of it. Feel free to use my logic next year. You’re welcome.
Very nice living room and I’m proud that you got rid of your multi-holiday tree. HOWEVER, I do remember a post on Good Mom/Bad Mom where Halli was best friends with a giant onion you found on the back of a cupboard. THEREFORE, I think your kitchen is your secret hoard! I call SHENANIGANS!
I have a friend, no lie, who custom built his house with a Christmas tree closet. The tree is on a platform on wheels. The day after Thanksgiving, open the closet, roll out the decorated tree. January 9, open the closet, roll the decorated tree back in the closet. Most brilliant house design ever.
I wish you’d moved the tree to the other side of the glass doors and then put some confetti and party hats all over the tree in the corner. Then it’d be like the poor Christmas tree got shut out of the Cinco de Mayo party or something. But I guess that’s mean. Why am I being so mean?
Um, apropos of nothing but can I just ask you this: you have leather furniture and kitties. How is that working out for you? Because we have fairly new kitties and a fairly new leather couch and they started digging their claws into it and therefore it is now covered with roughly 184 blankets/sheets and does not look lovely, but looks like crap.
Are your kitties just lovely and non-scratchy? Or did you do something to train them to live in harmony with the leather?
(Two of the cats are declawed and the other I keep trimmed. I give them lots of scratching posts filled catnip. That said? They’ve destroyed my leather office chair. They seem to pick and choose what they want to kill. ~ Jenny)
Your living room gets a LOT more natural light now that you have that tree out of the way.
You shoulda kept it up and redecorated it with little flags for Memorial Day. Which would work equally well for Flag Day and the Fourth of July. Then, by mid-July, the stores will be decorating for Christmas and the tree would be timely again.
One year, my roommate and I left our tree up for the whole year. Ornaments came off mid-March, by July we were “seriously” thinking about taking it down, but then since we were on the downhill slump to Christmas again, there really was no point. We thought the least we could do was decorate it for each holiday! Ha! If we had that kind of motivation we wouldn’t have had it up in the first place. Good intentions can only take you so far in life.
You have a lovely home, but you’re clearly a cat hoarder.
My husband would stab me in the face if I just now took down our Christmas tree. Also, can you please post more pictures of your house? I’d be nice to know just how to imagine you when I’m…imagining you.
I love your before and after pictures. I must find software that allows me to make snarky commentary on my own pictures, that I can then frame and give to inlaws. In cool, hot pink font.
PPPPPPS: Only 234 days until Christmas!
Damn you for making have to research what a chifforobe is. Actually, I’m just assuming you made that word up so now I don’t have to research anything. This is good because now I have more time to set up my Cinco de Mayo Tree in my living room. Now, where are those strings of chile peppers?
Well. I am glad I didn’t bother trying to write a hilarious recap of how I took down my Christmas wreath in April because it would have PALED in comparison.
Also, I hear you on worthless pets – I can report that 3 cats, a dog and a tarantula are equally unhelpful around here. The nerve.
You missed an opportunity here. You could have totally crowned it with a sombrero for Cinco de Mayo, hiding shots of tequila and margaritas on the branches and making a fantastic, if culturally insensitive, drinking game.
This is why I take my tree down the day after Christmas and put the walk in freezer back where it belongs. Why do you have the Sunmaid Raisin lady hanging in the hallway? Does that have something to do with the missing chifforobe? Wtf is a chifforobe? Don’t make me Google it. I’m pretty sure they talked about a chifforobe in the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird in the courtroom part where that dumb redneck girl talks about getting raped when in fact she didn’t get raped but was all turned on by the guy cutting up the chifforobe that she paid him a nickel to do. I always thought it was a pile of wood or something but now I see it was something that looks like a walk in freezer.
I hope I didn’t ruin the book or movie for anyone.
I kinda admire you here. I’m so OCD that i would have been batshit crazy by now if my tree was still up. Also, because it was real my house would be disgusting. I also have an unhelpful cat….
along with 3 unhelpful kids, and unhelpful dog and one seriously unhelpful husband.
The best way to take a tree down is insult it mercilessly. Or kick it in the knots. They drop like…well…trees that have been kicked in the knots, frankly.
You could have just left it up and draped it with other holiday items, such as tequila and margarita bottles for cinqo de mayo, or an american flag for independence day. it would be a holiday tree instead. bonus to this is you wouldn’t feel like you were missing furniture.
You had a nightmare about Neicy Nash and her big hair flower didn’t you?? ? She came in and picked up your cats and sang “Who Wants a Clean House mmmmmm” and then tried to get you to sell your taxidermied alligator at the garage sale. That would scare the shit out of men enough to stop hoarding and clear out that tree…
Star Wars hipsters, lazy cats and the word chiffarobe all in the same post.
I love you.
I didn’t even put up a tree this year or any other Christmas related decorations this year… So no matter what, you (and the terrorists) still win.
In response to comment number 29… I must say, my roommate has a manikin that lives in our office. Well, it’s really a dress form for when she’s sewing, but that’s like comparing apples and oranges. They’re both fruit.
OMG! I did Google it and I was right about the To Kill a Mockingbird connection!!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifforobe. He was busting up a cifforobe and it was kindling. High school was not wasted. My parents would be so proud!
I would have left it there.
It almost Christmas again anyway…
Like another commenter, I’m loving your ceramic tile. The secret to having tile in a non-bathroom space and having it look good is picking a non-square pattern that has to be laid down like a puzzle, like yours. Don’t let any tile guy tell you that you can use square tiles all over the house. It makes your living room look like you should be showering in it. Even if they want to lay the squares “on the diagonal.” then it just looks like you didn’t care enough about your enormous bathroom to lay the tile straight, and why the hell does your toilet look like a love seat? That shit’s just confusing.
It really makes no sense to put a tree up inside one’s home for any occasion really. Unless, of course, you are using it for shade.
I still don’t know what a chifforobe is.
And my cats would be climbing all in the tree which is why I never put one up in the first place. They are Christmas tree assholes.
We have had our tree up for 10 years. It resides in our living room. We are in the process of a 10 year marital spat about the practicality of a fake tree over the smell and nostalgia of a real tree. Guess who’s winning.
Sadly, right now, only one string of lights is working. Damn, Hobby Lobby.
Chifforobe is like, my favorite word, and I don’t think I’ve heard it since my grandma died, so removing the tree accomplished that much!
Yeah, my grandma used to leave her still-decorated tree in the shower during the off months. She bought herself a clawfoot bathtub just because her Christmas tree was in the way and she could only take a shower during Christmas.
–>A male dog would have at least christened in by now and I don’t mean like Jesus. Although Jesus peed too. So, nevermind.
http://www.WebSavvyMom.com
Have you considered doing a remake of “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” with your dactyly enhanced kitty?
You should have planted that tree in the yard for Earth Day. The Chupacabra would have loved it.
That would be tragic! Especially if the walk-in freezer is where you keep Wil Wheaton when he’s not collating paper.
I hate to say it, but you just have the wrong cat. A cat that is perhaps much smarter than all humans (I knew the time would come. We have a polydactyl (Hemingway) cat too, and he can not only disassemble christmas trees, open doors, turn on faucets but he can make origami dinosaurs…. true story. I’d offer to train your cat, but if he/she is a super genius, then I don’t need that sort of influence around my cats- they still haven;t let on that they are superior to us humans, and I don’t need mutiny.
Taking the tree down in Alaska is particularly depressing because January is only three very specific things here: cold, snow and dark. Hideous, frightening, unimaginable-until-you-experience-it-on-a-daily-basis dark . You don’t miss the plastic furniture so much as the sweet, sweet light. Which leads me to conclude that next year my tree stays up until Mothers Day week as well. Thanks, Jenny!
More importantly, what is that painting on the left in the after picture. Pretty sure that if that were a high-res photo, I could make it out.
… and by left-hand side I obviously meant right-hand side. Just pretend I was correcting for the mirror-flip of the camera.
My mother-in-law is a hoarder, and the hilarious thing about her is she watches Niecy and that show on A & E and talks about how crazy those people are and the rest of us are all looking at her and going WTF??? The first time I visited her house the Christmas tree was still up–a once live, but then very, very dead tree-with all the wrapping and ribbon from Christmas morning gift opening still under it, with lots of Dachshund piss and turds mixed in for good measure. It was April. AND I SITLL MARRIED INTO THE FAMILY. I guess the real question is, who, exactly, then, is the crazy one?
Our cat did not have thumbs, and yet managed to take down our Christmas tree half a dozen times every season. We finally started pretending to be Jewish so we wouldn’t have to put a tree up anymore. The kids didn’t care as long as they got presents, although they did not appreciate the dreidels as much as you might imagine. The cat lived to be 20 before he died in my lap. He also crapped in my lap as he was drawing his last breath. I forgave him for that even though, in my opinion, he did it because he had not forgiven me for taking away the Christmas tree. We buried him under a fir tree along with all the dreidels that we had to replace with proper Christian video game consoles and iPods.
slay me.
what i think is most hysterical is that you’re just under 6 months away from having to put it up again.
also? i love that you just dragged it out to victor’s parking spot. this is hysterical.
I think you should leave it up all year round and let Hailey decorate it for every holiday. It would totally start a trend. Plus, you wouldn’t have to ever “take it down” to the garage again. I think James Garfield WANTS you to leave it up and has been sending you telepathic messages which is why you never took it down in the first place. So, if nothing else, now you know you were able to shake off the mind control of a stuffed boar’s head in ONLY FIVE MONTHS! See? You are awesome.
It’s a shame you took it down – if you’d left it up two more months you could have passed it off as evidence of your super-preparedness in that you had the tree up six months early. I’ve done it, and people seemed impressed with that level of organization and planning.
I want to make a fort in that cave area over the archway thingee on the left.
What? Forts are cool.
I had a teacher once, back in highschool, how had the same christmas tree for at least 7 years, and what she would do was change the decorations acording to the month we where now in and the festivities it brought. so if it was february, she would put hearts and that kind of shit. she didn’t decorate for halloween though, being a catholic school and all.
lazy ass.
Tell Victor that the cats overwhelmed you, drugged you and the tree, and left it in his parking space as a warning! LOL
Your living room is far too clean for you to be a hoarder. Plus, you only have the one cat….
Damn cats, all mine has done today was lay on the pillow and clean what is left of his genitals.
And yes, it counts as “taking down the tree” because you got it out of the house and put it in the “man space”. Now it is Victor’s problem. Good thing he doesn’t have any broken bones or anything…. he can handle it. Man up, Victor. 😛
Ours is still up. We win.
Oh wait! All bets are off! I see multiple cats in the pictures.
swim, swam, swum
drag, dragged, drugged
I too, want to know about the painting in the hallway alcove. It looks like a cool, Mexican-saint-style picture of you! Photo, please!
I am convinced you need to invent a tree decorating holiday that occurs in the summer and decorate accordingly. We celebrated valentinesdaysgiving this year because it was time for a turkey dinner, the calendar holidays are really just a guideline or suggestions for inventing your own!
Youre not a hoarder. I think that really there was an epic battle between you and the Christmas tree, and you dragging it into the garage means that you win. Technically you havent given into its demands.
Now you have space for paper mache statuary or to add to your collection of slightly inappropriate and mangy taxidermy.
I’d consider hauling it back in next week. Then you’ll be super prepared for next year just like all those people who did their shopping for next Christmas on December 26th.
We took our Christmas lights down last weekend. :: fist bump on the white trashiness ::
You should leave it up and be like that crazy mom on Wife Swap who had a christmas tree up all year and left her daughter a present under it everyday.
You should totally just drag that other tree out of the corner and put it in the middle of the room. Then you have a “seasonal” tree and the space doesn’t look empty. Bonus: The space where the ficus resides now can totally fit the walk-in freezer and you can put Posey in there if he ever dies (please don’t posey!) Then he will be able to keep James Garfield company and you’ll have awesome Christmas cards because you’ll have a boar, a cat AND an alligator. WIN!!!!
(admittedly it all sounded much better in my head, like most things.)
Next year, just decorate the Ficus (?) that’s in the left corner. Then you don’t to worry about making space or losing furniture. That’s what I do.
I’m not understanding why you took the tree down. I mean you could have had the most festive, happiest house on the block all year. Those other losers only have Festive & Happy for like 3 weeks and it’s during the sad, depressing, ooky weather part of the year so Festive & Happy is compromised. But you… you could have had uncompromised, unadulterated Festive & Happy year round. Put it back up. Throw glitter at it.
I think you should’ve resisted peer pressure and just left it up. I just took the Easter eggs off mine. Now, between now and mid-June I just throw tacky plastic flowers on it. Then later remove those and decorate it in red, white and blue. And so on and so on. That way you never have an awkward hole in your room. 🙂
cats can be sooooooo condescending.
Wow, you really are procrastinating. Go write! Christmas trees be damned!
Still waiting for apologies from the people who called you a hoarder.
OK, 2 things:
1) My mom has a cat with opposable thumbs. They’re sixth fingers, or toes, or whatever. So he’s too fat to do much except eat, and his sixth toes make him additionally uncoordinated (usually he falls fat on his face), BUT he can grasp things with those opposable thumbs. I saw him pick up a fucking string once with his thumb and I just kept thinking ‘the next thing is gonna be a trigger,’ and then I started thinking about Planet of the Apes. Then my mom got me a beer and a cigarette and I was OK.
2) I once burned an entire Christmas tree in my friend’s chimney. Don’t EVER do this. Christmas trees don’t just burn, they explode, and they smell like lots of pot when they burn. That part didn’t bother us so much.
And then I found five dollars.
I actually know a cat with thumbs but they don’t seem to work properly…unless said cat, known to theworld as Big Boy, is pretending they function as one might expect to avoid responsibility. If this is true, I nominate Big Boy to run Homeland Security.
Your house is so clean!! I want a clean house too!
I haven’t had a Christmas tree for the last two or three Christmases (just haven’t gotten around to it), so you can tell people you were leaving it up to make up for my lack of tree. Also, yesterday was Star Wars Day? Why do I never know these things? Maybe I should do the Twitter thing.
It’s Cinco De Mayo, so you need to fill the empty spot with a giant margarita glass ala Dita Von Teese. Obviously. Plus the salt on the rim will do wonders for your skin.
I also know a cat with thumbs. Known to the world as Big Boy, he chooses not to use them for anything important. He would definitely not help in the removal of a Christmas tree. He does, however, know how to open a screen door and can almost turn on a faucet. He doesn’t know I know this so shhhhh.
If Victor wanted a place to park his car, he could have taken down the tree himself.
Merry Christmas and stuff! 🙂
Amy is right. If you get a real tree, your work is done and the cats will join in gleefully.
That Radiohead song, “Fake Plastic Trees” is fitting for this situation. “It wears her out…….it wears her out.”
You may have lost the tree but you’ve gained an escape route!
FYI: Cats are definitely useless by choice. No way that cat would have helped you even if he had a opposable thumbs.
Similar psychology is why I refuse to every put up ANY Christmas decorations. First I have to put them up, then I have to take them down??? And all the do the whole time is stand/hang there looking cheap and tacky? Not this year Christmas decorations. And not EVER.
My son’s Christmas Tree is still up! Check your @ on twitter, I sent you a pic of his yesterday 🙂
god dammit. why does everyone else have to have a clean house? my kids are about to be taken away due to unsanitary living conditions and you’re worried about a tree??
i’m sorry. that was mean. they’re not going to be taken away. but if they were, i bet the house would be clean.
Dear The Bloggess,
As a single, childless, male in his early twenties, faithfully reading your blog makes me feel awkward.
So…thanks for that.
Christ…
-Taylor
Snorty-laugh. I always love you but today I love you a whole chifforobe.
OH! You should start a contest…starting next year, since you took your tree down already. So next year…or rather this year…this coming Christmas…we ALL put up our trees and decorate it. Then the next month we decorate it according to the month…etc etc etc and whomever has the BEST decorations could win a prize. And if you were able to find a famous person to take a picture you would win the world. But you should do it. I’ll help you! And I would love to have a reason to keep my tree up all year round and decorate the hell out of it! SO much fun!
PS. My cats like to help me only when I’m doing homework or cross stitching, otherwise they don’t give a damn.
Day Brightener: One of my most cherished compliments is from a friend who said that if I had a blog, it would be like yours.
Day Downer: I have a blog. And it is not even in the same universe as yours. Pluto exists more than my blog.
Proof: I sent said friend my blog link and never got a response. We’ve since shifted the discussion to garlic butter and the dangers of ordering a “scampi” dish in the UK.
Back-handed compliment with a well-meaning heart of gold: When I read your blog, I lose my will to write, because yours is already so full of win.
See what I did there?
I learned all that from my Catholic grandmother.
We only managed to get thru Valentine’s Day this year before our Christmas tree came down. Because it wasn’t plastic, the Fire Department said that once it became uniformly brown and crunchy, it was too big a fire hazard. So we took all the valentines off it and took it outside in the yard and checked to see if it was a fire hazard. It was, but it was also AWESOME because it burned down to a little black log in 5.7 seconds flat! KA-FOOM! and then gone. Next year I’m going to buy a dozen Christmas trees on Christmas day and stash them out on the porch until the Fourth of July. Then I’ll show the Fire Department what a REAL fire hazard is!
I don’t know about the tree, but it looks like you moved your office wall. WTF?
Take the route that I do. Don’t bother putting up a tree. That way you won’t miss it. Of course, you do have a young child, so I doubt that solution will fly.
Your cats, unhelpful? My cats, bossy and in-the-way. My dogs believe they are helpful. My dogs, overzealous and in-the-way.
ha! you mentioned cats with thumbs – have you seen this spot? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2011/mar/01/cravendale-milk-cats-thumbs thought you might get a kick out of it. :))
actually, i have another cat one oddly enough…i’ll send it your way as soon as it’s wrapped… 🙂
Clearly not a hoarder as any true hoarder would be making good use of those open areas on top of the walls to store back issues of Tiger Beat because, you never know. And are you sure you were looking for a chifforobe? Maybe you were looking for a time portal to return you to a time when people used the word chifforobe. Just trying to be helpful…
I say you should have left it up – then when Christmas rolled around you’d be set while we’d all be scrambling to put the damn thing up!
I got tired of having to assemble my tree every year so now we just haul it to the garage and throw a sheet of plastic over it. It’s much easier to put up the tree that way. Now I’m considering just leaving the ornaments on it too.
I don’t do indoor christmas trees because they freak me out for some reason. So I just hang ornaments on the trees in my yard…they double as elk play toys…and hang all year.
Looks like your cat is trying to reach the fern on the end table. Catnip?
I’m not sure I understand why you took it down at all. You’re just going to have to put it up again in six months. At this point it seems a little like making the bed right before you have sex in it. WHY.
Plus, if someone were to ask you why you still had your Christmas tree up you could just tell them you don’t *still* have it up, you’re just getting on top of the holiday season early last year because that time of year can be so stressful and then proceed to make them feel like a lazy procrastinator.
Well, my cat is also useless at taking down trees. I’m sensing a theme here…
However, he does earn his keep by catching mice and generally being cute.
Also, I understand the procrastination with taking down the Christmas tree. It always feels so sad.
my mother completely boycotted taking down the Christmas tree for ALL of 2010 – it was the first year she had ever had a fake one and since it wasn’t shedding needles, what’s the point. In June my aunt brought over little butterflies and flowers to decorate it and it became a summer tree. She decided this year that it should be put away, I was enormously disappointed.
I’m not sure how you get away with leaving a Christmas tree up for 6 months. Were you and Victor each waiting the other out to see who would cave and take it down?
Haha my cats are equally unhelpful in those circumstances. You notice how the MOMENT you enpty out the space, they feel the need to investigate it and lay on it??
Great blog! 🙂
One of my most favorite things about this post: your 135-year-old cat is sitting right smack dab in the middle of the floor. Bad-ass cat (that’s just a guess…true?)
You lost a tree, a freezer, and a parking space all at once. That IS a shit day. The cats are witnesses to your life. Lazy ass witnesses, but still, watching you nonetheless. It’s better this way. Can you imagine the bossy backseat driving opinions they’d voice about the tree if they could speak and help? An earlier commenter has a cat named Hamish. That’s awesome. I’m naming my next mute witness pet Hamish.
By the way, my Aunt Mildred left her tree up year around until she died at the age of 90. She also collected so many antiques that she had an entire room dedicated to just chairs. She was FANTASTIC.
The thing that stuck out most to me is the fact that I have never seen the word ‘chifforobe’ spelled out before. It almost makes me feel dirty, like I’ve just seen something I never should have. Your Christmas Tree-less-ness has left a tiny scar on my psyche. And now I can’t stop saying it outloud. The tree’s wrath knows no bounds.
Your cat is a slacker and should be threatened with military school. I harnessed my Boston Terriers to my tree and forced them to drag it to storage and they don’t have thumbs. I don’t even know if you can count them as having a full face. Have you seen these things?
Next year just decorate the cat. They clean themselves. Or if you want something taller, decorate Victor.
What a beautiful place you have (even without the tree)!
One year we left the work tree up all year. We had an MLK tree, a President’s Day tree, a Cesar Chavez’s birthday tree, etc. Go get the tree out of the garage, or go find it, since I’m sure Victor has moved it out of his parking space by now, and get to work on that tree! After all, May 15 is simultaneously Hug Your Cat day and National Mole day. You don’t want to make the fur babies feel unappreciated.
In defense of the cat with thumbs … I have not one but two ring finger, but no one will marry me.
that definitely counts as taking down the tree (DUH). It’s really Victor’s fault for not being more proactive about the situation in the first place, so really I blame him for all of this!
http://rebekaann.blogspot.com
I know a guy who just took his tree down…and it wasn’t artificial. He has cats, too. But I don’t think he’s ever had a picture made with one on his head.
When I first read your post, I kinda skipped your introduction and went straight for the first photo instead. I spent at least 5 minutes trying to figure out what was so inappropriate about the tree (on the left hand side of the photo – totally didn’t notice the Christmas tree behind the writing).
I also did not see your cat on the sofa at first. I really had to squint and get up close to the screen.
I spent over £1,000 on laser eye surgery two years ago.
I want a refund.
ps: You know those ‘spot the difference’ photos in magazines? I’ve always sucked at those. Now I know why.
You suck, laser eye surgery.
I think you should have dragged the tree off to somewhere totally random like a petrol station (sorry, I mean “gas station” – us Brits are such tossers with our different language. Muahahah) and put it up for other people to enjoy and get all confused by. Or a supermarket. Or outside the house of some Jewish friends.
Or float it on a pond.
it will be missed
Funny that I read this a big list of all of the reasons I switched to a All-in-one christmas tree 3 years ago. I already switched from real to plastic previously, lights and deco’s included was just the next step!
I can lend you Spawn, he’ll shred and recycle it for you. Unless you want to use it again next year. Then again he could probably make you an Avantgarde tree.
i can’t believe you had a Christmas tree hanging around on spring! lol. the cat looks cute though, they’re just the cutest yet laziest animals ever!
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If you got a live tree it would have the added benefit of decaying if left up. Rotting tree pulp = mother’s little helper.
So awesome. Time to decorate for Easter.
Did you take the decorations off before dragging it into Victor’s spot? If yes, totally counts, if no, then his wrath is going to get you
At least your cats had the sense to stay out of your way. Mine would have been twisting their furry bodies through my legs the entire time I was moving the tree. It’s like they don’t care if they kill the one person who keeps them fed and cleans up their shit. Hipsters for sure.
If you start putting pounds of hamburger and bags of tilapia in your tree you could tell Victor it IS a walk-in freezer and leave it up all year. Total win.
One year my Mom left up a real tree so long, by the time we DRUG it out of the house there were no needles left (they were all stuck in the shag (yes shag it was cool then) carpet. After she left to do errands, we DRUG it back in and decorated it all over again (man we were cruel). Good Times
Did you ask the tree to politely remove itself from the premises and allow it to walk itself over there? No, you probably didn’t. You probably did try to ask — I’m halfway positive — but the fact is that you did it. You moved it. You put it where the car should be. You made the effort. Be proud of yourself, Jenny. Not all Treeaholics could have been so strong. I’m proud of you. Now, I believe it’s time for a refill on your prescription…
Oh, yeah, the Christmas tree. I should take ours down, too, where “down” = “drag into a different room and throw a sheet over it”.
Jenny
Sure to make you feel much better about the loss of the tree — a date for James Garfield:
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I left my Christmas Tree up for fifteen months once (from November 2008 to February 2010). It was decorated with shiny silver dinosaurs though, so that was completely acceptable.
Last year I never did take down my Christmas wreath on the front door. It finally blew off in a wind storm. In, oh I don’t know, about July? I know it was after the 4th, because after some point I was like “oh, it has a red and white ribbon, so really it’s in celebration of the 4th of july”. I know it made the OCD retired neighbors CRAZY. Whatever. I didn’t want to have to find a place to store it.
At least you put up the christmas tree! I had our second baby in the beginning of December, so we decided there was no time or energy for tree nonsense. In some way though, I think that is still a victory for the tree…
Dear, you still won because it is NOT June yet. (Ok. It made sense before I typed this out. Trust me. There’s some logic in this).
How about putting a sticker of a tree on that window/door pane?
I am doing something similar with my closet now: Last year, I did not bother to switch from summer clothes to winter clothes: I basically have been wearing summer clothes with layers over them throughout the winter. Now it is almost summer. The circle of life.
My favorite freakin post ever! My god you have balls….for leaving that damn tree up. And that cat reminds me of one of my cats…dont think furrball ever moved in five years…lol
Gutsy. I wish I had left my tree up until May. I miss it.
If it makes you feel better, my tree was up until about six weeks ago. My dad suggested we just throw a tarp over it and tell people it was in storage. LOL. It’s all boxed up now…but still in our living room. For six weeks. It’s sat in a box in our living room. Baby steps.
Heck. I say if it’s been up that long, leave it up. You could drape holiday appropriate items on it for each holiday. Then it just become the “Holiday Tree”.
This is absolutely priceless! You could have left it up until after the 4th of July and put red, white, and blue ornaments on it. Just a thought. *Grins*
God, your house is so grown up looking. I dunno what I was expecting. Arcade sized Mrs. Pac Man, neon bean bags and anamatronic E.T. roaming around, I guess. I’m kinda intimidated. I’ll be out in Victor’s parking spot, hiding in the tree.
Actually, I guess I knew it was grown up looking from previous pictures, especially with that wicked hand-done desk. Still. Is shocking and I guess I repress it each time. In my mind, you live like Tom Hanks in Big . And Victor looks like Sean Young, but with more of a mullet.
Damn….now that you’ve taken down your tree I definitely have to take mine down or I’ll look bad! Grrrr…..
Problem is, I have no place to put it. Oh well, guess I’ve lost my clothes-drying rack for awhile. Gotta get the Hubs on it, get the tree put up!
Mine is still up. It’s three feet tall and silver with glass ornaments and I like it. I may just leave it up. I win?
I didn’t know there were other people in the world, aside from my mother, who didn’t take their Christmas trees down immediately after the Holidays.
And damn, that’s one nice-looking living room!
I suggest for the rearrangement.It makes your living room look like you should be showering in it. Even if they want to lay the squares “on the diagonal.
I think you get bonus points for using the word “chifforobe.” Also, spellchecker does not recognize the word “chifforobe,” but it does recognize “spellchecker.”
Poor Victor. I hope he is on meds to help cope with, um, life…not implying you of course.
I left my Christmas tree up one year until April 1st before I finally got the idea in my head that maybe I ought to take the damn thing down.
I spent all of April Fool’s Day telling people, “Merry Christmas!”
I was really the only person who found it all that funny.
First time reader. Started with the giant chicken, moved on to James Garfield. Funniest thing I’ve read in a while and I’m in a doctoral program. High hilarity there.
BTW, I just took down my tinder-dry tree on June 20. Only did it because I was throwing a birthday party for my pugs.
Is it weird that your ficus tree in the background actually looks like a 5 foot metal chicken shape? Maybe it was a premonition…
Did you notice that the remaining tree/plant in your living room looks like a rooster? Is this foreshadowing?
Wow…clearly I should read your other comments before commenting. But I’m a diplomat and that isn’t what we do.
I once left my Christmas tree up for 2 years. It’s very relaxing and calming to come home, pour yourself a drink, and get lost in the lights. Plus, I didn’t have to vacuum that corner. Minus. After I took the tree down, I really had to vacuum that corner.