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Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
I haven't had a Christmas Tree since I left Shropshire and came to London back in 1984. Christmas Trees were always something they did at home and most years I went there or somewhere else that had a tree. I never had the room and after moving to the Athenaeum Club, the Colonel and I never bothered; he because he likes to be curmudgeonly and I because I couldn't be bothered to argue the point. The past two years, Furtle and I had Christmas lights in the bedroom to give a nice Christmassy feel to things, but still no tree.
Life in the Carpathia is different.
As I alluded briefly in my last post, we trimmed our tree last night, and very nice it looks, too. It's only an artificial tree, but on the whole, despite loving the smell of pine, for some reason I don't feel easy killing a tree (how eco-friendly am I?) just for a fortnight or so's decoration. Plus a real tree gets messy as the needles drop off.
Anyway, I had forgotten just how much effort a Christmas Tree demands. Perhaps that is why![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
colonel_maxim would sooner curmudge than join in?
Ours is a cheap offering from Tesco - it advertises itself as a six foot tree, but clearly it has been measured and categorised in Lilliput; I'd say it's about 5'6" tops. Still, it looks the part for an artificial offering. Over the past few weeks Furtle and I have obtained the necessary baubles, chocolates and tinsel and last night we dug out the lights and set to work assembling, draping and generally sprucing the er... spruce. Creating the space for it was the first job, so the spare poufé, complete with stuffed Frog in Dr Who scarf had to be moved. The tree was assembled and the lights and tinsel draped, wrapped and generally threaded over, through, between and under the branches. It's hard work. Then we added various baubles, stars, drums penguins and chocolates. Very nice. After nearly strangling ourselves with the power chords (which sounds rather more musical than it should), I managed to manhandle the tree into the corner and plug the lights in. I escorted Furtle to the far end of the room, switched off the main room lighting and switched on the tree lights. "You may now open your eyes," I told her. I thought it looked good.
"The red and blue lights make it look rather patriotic, but not very Christmassy", she observed. "The decorations don't show up very much and don't reflect the lights particularly. The tree looks black instead of green."
All salient points, but I still thought it looked pretty enough. I am not, however, immune to the waves of disappointment that emanate from a Furtle who is attempting bravery in the face of what she regards as a festive cock up, so we unplugged the lights, dragged the tree back from its perch and unwound the bluey-white lights that gave so much offence. The multicoloured lights that have adorned the bedroom these past two years were brought into play. There is about a half mile of the brutes and they could only be wound around the tree after the deliberate removal of the tinsel and the inadvertent removal of several baubles. There was some cursing involved and a lot of tangling. The tree was manhandled back into place and the process of trying various non-hypnotic settings for the lights began. Eventually it was decided that it was best to dispense with the flashing-light settings in their near-infinite variations and simply have the lights on a all the time. The bluey-white star shaped lights were draped across the bookshelf to prove that we had not wasted our money on them.
We admired the tree for a little while, Furtle announcing herself to be rather more satisfied by the effect than before and then ate our take out curry, whilst watching Dr Who. I am now going to dig out and plug in the timers for the lights so that we don't need to keep limbo dancing under the futon settee to find the power switch every time we want Christmas lights. Then I'd better do some work.
So far it has not started spinning and chasing people down the street
Life in the Carpathia is different.
As I alluded briefly in my last post, we trimmed our tree last night, and very nice it looks, too. It's only an artificial tree, but on the whole, despite loving the smell of pine, for some reason I don't feel easy killing a tree (how eco-friendly am I?) just for a fortnight or so's decoration. Plus a real tree gets messy as the needles drop off.
Anyway, I had forgotten just how much effort a Christmas Tree demands. Perhaps that is why
colonel_maxim would sooner curmudge than join in? Ours is a cheap offering from Tesco - it advertises itself as a six foot tree, but clearly it has been measured and categorised in Lilliput; I'd say it's about 5'6" tops. Still, it looks the part for an artificial offering. Over the past few weeks Furtle and I have obtained the necessary baubles, chocolates and tinsel and last night we dug out the lights and set to work assembling, draping and generally sprucing the er... spruce. Creating the space for it was the first job, so the spare poufé, complete with stuffed Frog in Dr Who scarf had to be moved. The tree was assembled and the lights and tinsel draped, wrapped and generally threaded over, through, between and under the branches. It's hard work. Then we added various baubles, stars, drums penguins and chocolates. Very nice. After nearly strangling ourselves with the power chords (which sounds rather more musical than it should), I managed to manhandle the tree into the corner and plug the lights in. I escorted Furtle to the far end of the room, switched off the main room lighting and switched on the tree lights. "You may now open your eyes," I told her. I thought it looked good.
"The red and blue lights make it look rather patriotic, but not very Christmassy", she observed. "The decorations don't show up very much and don't reflect the lights particularly. The tree looks black instead of green."
All salient points, but I still thought it looked pretty enough. I am not, however, immune to the waves of disappointment that emanate from a Furtle who is attempting bravery in the face of what she regards as a festive cock up, so we unplugged the lights, dragged the tree back from its perch and unwound the bluey-white lights that gave so much offence. The multicoloured lights that have adorned the bedroom these past two years were brought into play. There is about a half mile of the brutes and they could only be wound around the tree after the deliberate removal of the tinsel and the inadvertent removal of several baubles. There was some cursing involved and a lot of tangling. The tree was manhandled back into place and the process of trying various non-hypnotic settings for the lights began. Eventually it was decided that it was best to dispense with the flashing-light settings in their near-infinite variations and simply have the lights on a all the time. The bluey-white star shaped lights were draped across the bookshelf to prove that we had not wasted our money on them.
We admired the tree for a little while, Furtle announcing herself to be rather more satisfied by the effect than before and then ate our take out curry, whilst watching Dr Who. I am now going to dig out and plug in the timers for the lights so that we don't need to keep limbo dancing under the futon settee to find the power switch every time we want Christmas lights. Then I'd better do some work.
So far it has not started spinning and chasing people down the street
I haven't had a Christmas Tree since I left Shropshire and came to London back in 1984. Christmas Trees were always something they did at home and most years I went there or somewhere else that had a tree. I never had the room and after moving to the Athenaeum Club, the Colonel and I never bothered; he because he likes to be curmudgeonly and I because I couldn't be bothered to argue the point. The past two years, Furtle and I had Christmas lights in the bedroom to give a nice Christmassy feel to things, but still no tree.
Life in the Carpathia is different.
As I alluded briefly in my last post, we trimmed our tree last night, and very nice it looks, too. It's only an artificial tree, but on the whole, despite loving the smell of pine, for some reason I don't feel easy killing a tree (how eco-friendly am I?) just for a fortnight or so's decoration. Plus a real tree gets messy as the needles drop off.
Anyway, I had forgotten just how much effort a Christmas Tree demands. Perhaps that is whycolonel_maxim would sooner curmudge than join in?
Ours is a cheap offering from Tesco - it advertises itself as a six foot tree, but clearly it has been measured and categorised in Lilliput; I'd say it's about 5'6" tops. Still, it looks the part for an artificial offering. Over the past few weeks Furtle and I have obtained the necessary baubles, chocolates and tinsel and last night we dug out the lights and set to work assembling, draping and generally sprucing the er... spruce. Creating the space for it was the first job, so the spare poufé, complete with stuffed Frog in Dr Who scarf had to be moved. The tree was assembled and the lights and tinsel draped, wrapped and generally threaded over, through, between and under the branches. It's hard work. Then we added various baubles, stars, drums penguins and chocolates. Very nice. After nearly strangling ourselves with the power chords (which sounds rather more musical than it should), I managed to manhandle the tree into the corner and plug the lights in. I escorted Furtle to the far end of the room, switched off the main room lighting and switched on the tree lights. "You may now open your eyes," I told her. I thought it looked good.
"The red and blue lights make it look rather patriotic, but not very Christmassy", she observed. "The decorations don't show up very much and don't reflect the lights particularly. The tree looks black instead of green."
All salient points, but I still thought it looked pretty enough. I am not, however, immune to the waves of disappointment that emanate from a Furtle who is attempting bravery in the face of what she regards as a festive cock up, so we unplugged the lights, dragged the tree back from its perch and unwound the bluey-white lights that gave so much offence. The multicoloured lights that have adorned the bedroom these past two years were brought into play. There is about a half mile of the brutes and they could only be wound around the tree after the deliberate removal of the tinsel and the inadvertent removal of several baubles. There was some cursing involved and a lot of tangling. The tree was manhandled back into place and the process of trying various non-hypnotic settings for the lights began. Eventually it was decided that it was best to dispense with the flashing-light settings in their near-infinite variations and simply have the lights on a all the time. The bluey-white star shaped lights were draped across the bookshelf to prove that we had not wasted our money on them.
We admired the tree for a little while, Furtle announcing herself to be rather more satisfied by the effect than before and then ate our take out curry, whilst watching Dr Who. I am now going to dig out and plug in the timers for the lights so that we don't need to keep limbo dancing under the futon settee to find the power switch every time we want Christmas lights. Then I'd better do some work.
So far it has not started spinning and chasing people down the street
Life in the Carpathia is different.
As I alluded briefly in my last post, we trimmed our tree last night, and very nice it looks, too. It's only an artificial tree, but on the whole, despite loving the smell of pine, for some reason I don't feel easy killing a tree (how eco-friendly am I?) just for a fortnight or so's decoration. Plus a real tree gets messy as the needles drop off.
Anyway, I had forgotten just how much effort a Christmas Tree demands. Perhaps that is why
colonel_maxim would sooner curmudge than join in? Ours is a cheap offering from Tesco - it advertises itself as a six foot tree, but clearly it has been measured and categorised in Lilliput; I'd say it's about 5'6" tops. Still, it looks the part for an artificial offering. Over the past few weeks Furtle and I have obtained the necessary baubles, chocolates and tinsel and last night we dug out the lights and set to work assembling, draping and generally sprucing the er... spruce. Creating the space for it was the first job, so the spare poufé, complete with stuffed Frog in Dr Who scarf had to be moved. The tree was assembled and the lights and tinsel draped, wrapped and generally threaded over, through, between and under the branches. It's hard work. Then we added various baubles, stars, drums penguins and chocolates. Very nice. After nearly strangling ourselves with the power chords (which sounds rather more musical than it should), I managed to manhandle the tree into the corner and plug the lights in. I escorted Furtle to the far end of the room, switched off the main room lighting and switched on the tree lights. "You may now open your eyes," I told her. I thought it looked good.
"The red and blue lights make it look rather patriotic, but not very Christmassy", she observed. "The decorations don't show up very much and don't reflect the lights particularly. The tree looks black instead of green."
All salient points, but I still thought it looked pretty enough. I am not, however, immune to the waves of disappointment that emanate from a Furtle who is attempting bravery in the face of what she regards as a festive cock up, so we unplugged the lights, dragged the tree back from its perch and unwound the bluey-white lights that gave so much offence. The multicoloured lights that have adorned the bedroom these past two years were brought into play. There is about a half mile of the brutes and they could only be wound around the tree after the deliberate removal of the tinsel and the inadvertent removal of several baubles. There was some cursing involved and a lot of tangling. The tree was manhandled back into place and the process of trying various non-hypnotic settings for the lights began. Eventually it was decided that it was best to dispense with the flashing-light settings in their near-infinite variations and simply have the lights on a all the time. The bluey-white star shaped lights were draped across the bookshelf to prove that we had not wasted our money on them.
We admired the tree for a little while, Furtle announcing herself to be rather more satisfied by the effect than before and then ate our take out curry, whilst watching Dr Who. I am now going to dig out and plug in the timers for the lights so that we don't need to keep limbo dancing under the futon settee to find the power switch every time we want Christmas lights. Then I'd better do some work.
So far it has not started spinning and chasing people down the street