Let me tell you of a dark and scary place. It’s called our hallway.
Since time immemorial it has been stacked high with boxes, furniture and various other dubious treasures that have occupied this forsaken place since time immemorial. Today, myself, my wife and a merry band of adventurers took up the challenge to rid the Hallway of the Damned of its boxy denizens once and for all.
In other words, we cleaned out the hallway.
Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the task, this hallway runs the entire length of the house. Ever since I moved in it’s been packed literally to the ceiling with so many boxes and junk that until today I didn’t know what the other end looked like. The idea of such a mammoth task was scary…but not quite as scary as the dark secret I uncovered.
You see, every time I’d asked Sunny what was actually down there she’d told me it was furniture and various other stuff that was just piled in there when she moved in because there was no where else to put it.
Today I found out what three quarters of it was.
Christmas Decorations.\
It’s no secret that Sunny is a bit of a Christmas freak. I often tease her about it. She starts sneaking Christmas decorations into the house every October, hoping that they’ll go unnoticed by me amid all the other year-round ornamentation. On the flip side, it’s now May and I’m still noticing the odd miniature Christmas tree or Santa cookie jar that she ‘forgot’ to put away after Christmas.
So we were cleaning up the hallway and we were categorizing stuff. Stored clothing went in one area, furniture went in another. Sunny said to put all her Christmas stuff in the living room.
It was a bit of a shock when I walked into the living room expecting to see a couple of boxes and instead saw a stack of them about the size of a mid-sized are. Christmas tree stands, two artificial trees, a whole chest full of baubles, a gigantic box of tinsel, two boxes of antique ornaments. Don’t get me started on tree decorations (small), tree decorations (medium)…my head was spinning by the time I realized she had no less than 7 boxes of tree ornaments of various size, shapes and colors.
When you need a filing system just to categorize the various types of tree lights you have, something’s not quite right.
Then came the worst part. We were taking a break and I looked at Sunny (at least I tried to, it was hard to see her with all those boxes in the way) and I said:
“You know, you’ve got enough decorations here to decorate four or five houses here.”
“So?”
“Well, we only actually have one house. Two of these boxes would be plenty.”
“So?”
“Well, instead of putting all this into storage, why don’t we take half of it to the Goodwill store? You’ve got enough tree decorations alone to cover five or six trees, so why don’t we get rid of some of it instead of taking up all that space?”
Her face turned to stone. I mean the same look Joe Pesci got in ‘Goodfellas’ just before he whacked someone.
“Ha ha.” I said, turning to my Daughter in Law,
Sunny gave me a thoroughly unamused look that basically said ‘Yep, that’s exactly what I’d do as well.”
It’s scary. It used to be “Ha! My wife is Christmas crazy!” Using ‘crazy’ in the same context you use to describe that one wild friend you have that never managed to grow up.
Instead, yeah, my wife is ‘Christmas Crazy’…but ‘crazy’ in the same context as ‘We, the jury, find the defendant.”
Maybe I should get her family around here, we can empty all the boxes onto the floor to show her the sheer
So, sweetie, if you’re reading this…the first step is admitting you have a problem.
4 comments:
If you got my family together for an "intervention" and poured all the ornaments in the middle of the room and formed that mountain of beautiful glittery glory- I would be in the middle of it going"Owwwwww- Shiny!! Pretty!! Lights!!!" and COMPLETELY ignore the "interventionists" because I was distracted by the colorful treasures.
When I was three or four(mom can't remember which) I told every one I was going to marry Santa Claus when I grew up.
She has a picture of me about that same time KISSING a Christmas ornament.
I KNOW I have a problem....but I don't CARE. Christmas comes but once a year and I make the most of each and EVERY day of it....in days gone BY, by beginning the evening of Thanksgiving Day when we put up the tree and decorated it.
Since I married you, I HAVE compromised by putting the tree up later......Waiting all the way to DECEMBER!!!!!!! And I USED to have SEVEN trees I put up every year and I have brought that number down to........well..... LESS than seven, anyway. That's my compromise.
I actually think I'm doing very well to have gotten THAT far in a compromise.....and so should you.
After all....it COULD have INCREASED every year like it used to instead of decreasing....True?
Even tho you don't share my obsession of all things Christmas, you married me KNOWING FULL WELL how much i loved Christmas...so you must deal with it.
I was going to say "intervention," until I saw Sunny's comment. Now I don't have anything to say.
You should be fine, until she decides you are another object to be decorated. The moment she hangs an ornament on you, RUN!
No comment. But I do have to ask. Paul, wasnt it a clue last year that she had a problem when she hung a Hoola-Hoop sized (& do mean that literally) wreath on the door? :)
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