The holiday season is insane. I am aware that the previous statement is the cliche of all cliches. But really. It is December 7th. Three days ago, 21 full days before Christmas, I went to THREE different stores to buy plain white Christmas lights to hang on our tree this year, as somehow ours had been damaged or just crapped out on us after years of use. THREE different stores and all were sold out. Sold out of Christmas lights nearly a month before Christmas? When I asked where the Christmas lights were, employees looked at me like I was asking where I could buy a Thanksgiving turkey- they were all, ummm… you are sooooo too late for that, lady. Am I going insane???

So there sat our tree, a third of the way lit, as I ran out in the pouring rain to quell the fears of two (or three) young men who seemed to think that decorating a tree is a race against time and insisted on breaking hanging ornaments on the lower half of the tree the very moment its branches were alight with bulbs.

An hour and three stores later, I returned, sopping wet, tail between legs, all but empty-handed. My consolation prize: indoor/outdoor icicle lights which I believe were the last three boxes. And I had to lunge at those suckers Black Friday-style. Clearly, disaster averted. It turns out you can decorate a Christmas tree with icicle lights perfectly nicely thankyouverymuch. See?

This whole fiasco is making me wonder about simpler times. The good old days. You know, the days when people burned their entire houses down after putting open-flamed candles on dry pine trees they had dragged in from the cold. Now that, my friends, would have sucked.

And so there you have it. The holidays are insane. But we really have it pretty easy, don’t you think?

And just an FYI- our open-flamed candle is not nearly as close to this tree as it looks… actually a few feet away. I will do my best to burn our house down through some completely separate hair-brained scheme. But for now, our Christmas tree is lit and all is right in the world.