Last weekend we kicked off the Christmas month (aka December) with a breakfast with Santa up at one of the fancy Tucson resorts. Our inspiration for this new event (because goodness knows we need another Christmas-related activity!) was Genevieve's school choir, who is asked to preform at the breakfast each year. It turned out to be a good time. We were watching my teenage cousin this weekend and the two of us even went up and sat on Santa's lap and had our pictures taken, which gave me a strange sense of silliness and joy. Evie's choir did a great job and then she and Patrick were off for another rehearsal for a Christmas dance performance that we'll go to next week.
While they accomplished that task Izzy, my cousin, and myself went on a very important mission... find Sadie a nice warm cozy sweater. Said sweater was of critical shopping importance because little miss dachshund has decided it is too darn cold (yup as nippy as 40 degrees in the morning) for her to spend enough time outside and do her business. She was running outside, running back in, and then relieving herself inside. The mission was successful, sweater was acquired, however, it was made for a regular dog, not an extra-long one. As a result if you try to put the back straps on her legs she ends up walking around like she has a diaper on and looks decidedly uncomfortable. It's tough finding sweaters when you are long in the torso.
Then in the afternoon we all went out to find our Christmas tree. My cousin tried to convince us that we really should get at least 3 of them, like her family does... fortunately we resisted.... among other things I have no idea how we would have fit two, let alone 3 trees on top of the Subaru. The challenge every year with the tree au natrual is how the heck to get it perfectly upright when it is a far from perfect thing because, well it is natural. In the past we have managed to give a semblance of straightness by putting shims under the tree stand in key places or just by rotating the tree until you couldn't really tell it was leaning. This year, however, the tree was so very leaning that there was nothing to do but go out and buy a new fancy tree-stand that would let us adjust our leaning tower of treeza until it was just perfect. Patrick came back from his mission with not just a new tree stand but fake snow and tinsel... I am afraid my cousin is a terrible influence on us.... We now have a straight, well tinsled tree surrounded by a halo of fake snow.... so much for au natrual :)
