One of the benefits of growing old

I was in Michaels yesterday trying to destress from a rotten day in the office and I had a revelation. There I stood looking at aisles and piles of glittery, gooey Christmas ornaments, doo dads and what nots and realized that I don't have to do it anymore. i don't have to find just the right ornament for the tree or table top or door or dog. No siree, I have more ornaments et al than should be legal. Last count was 17 boxes and that's what is just in the attic. A place I no longer visit after I fell out of it one Christmas season.

An aside: Falling out of the attic, well really off the top of the ladder, I'd have to be an idiot to fall out of the big old square attic hole, taught me a several things 1: I really CAN'T fly no matter how many times I can in my dreams. 2: gravity IS really and truly stronger in the crap room (where the attic access is located) because it felt as if I was pulled off the ladder. C:I don't need to use ALL of the ornaments in the attic every year. $ While people feel badly for you when you fall out of or off, they really can't help chuckling because, damnit, it is funny to think of it. 5: And when your husband asks where you are when you fall, the answer isn't on the floor because... well.. see #1.

So I ave all of these ornaments and a small house and no longer the zest for all the hoo haw that goes along with Christmas. The sons are grown. Even when my mother was alive and my sister human (now she channels my mother and I'm STILL on the shit list) they never wanted to come to my house. Why? I suspect it's because we have.. glance over your shoulder, lower your voice to a whisper and say CHA_Nee-Nah's. Che-nee-nahs is a duck blood soup that looks nearly black in the bowl and despite the fact that the two whole houses in the neighborhood are African American and way down the street it still taints the air. Of course my mother was upset about the Greekan people who lived across the street from her house. I wonder what she'd say about the Asians across the street?

I'm rambling. I tend to do that when I have a captured audience.

Back to Christmas decorating... I don't have to do it! Stand up a tree, throw on the polymer clay ornaments, string lights and slap some wreathes on the wall and I'm set. So now I don't have to decided between this glittery bauble or that, or decided whether I want to spen $17 for a styrofoam cone covered with feathers, and will this break when someone knocks the tree over. Another Aside. We once lived in a small apartment whose stairs led up right from our own front door. I came home one day to find the Christmas tree at the bottom of the stairs. I dragged it back up, redecorated it and the next day it happened again. Did the drag decorate thing and this time I was around when the tree fall happened. Out cat would climb to the top of the tree, shake it till it fell over and then he'd ride the thing down the stairs. I moved the tree as far from the stairs as I could. Ha!

So no tree slides, no flipping baby Jesus... another aside but I won't go there and let the imagery haunt you... no coordinating colors, no theme. So with all of that off my mind I am free to obsess over other things. Too bad obsessing doesn't lead to weight loss. If it did, my weight would be in negative numbers.