Getting ready for Christmas

I made another effort to make ice skating here at the Museum on plastic more palatable by inviting another kid to join Kate. Neither of them liked it. No spraying ice as they turn or really going fast. So I'm over this effort. I actually liked it just for the reasons that kids don't like it. You don't suddenly find your find your feet going out in front of you and your rear end on the ground. Kate looks like a hockey player as she goes around the rink and so I'm arranging a safety lesson for her on Sunday. She doesn't skate well enough to go as fast as she does.

It was damn cold this morning and blissfully we did nothing as the windows glazed over with the interior heat and frigid temperatures. I finally roused myself went off on a solo visit to the hair dresser carrying the requisite Christmas offerings. Because we are trying to be abstemious, it's not so fun when you emerge newly coiffed and find that you're hungry -- should I waste the money on eating out -- and interested in buying new socks -- should I buy them at that store -- or just want to
look around and pass amongst them. So I nipped into one store cluthcing my coupons and then came home to find all my family in exactly the same positions that I had left them. Then I dealt with lunch. Next time I will definitely stay out longer and the money spent on lunch being served to me will definitely not be a waste. It will be part of the pleasure.


We finally bought out Christmas tree and for me this is a sacred routine and tradition where you go out to look over the stock of the local guys who have trucked down from Canada with their trees. You have to get them to unwrap every tree, shake it so that you can see the leaves and then bargain. I remember that my father did this in an overcoat and hat. Well, that part of the routine doesn't exist anymore. But we found a tree we thought might fill the room and carried it home. This was another of those ill fated decisions. We didn't really measure the tree and after we go it home we had to cut off some more height. Then after we set it up, we discovered that last year we had splurged on a beautiful top ornament. Too bad we forget about it until the tree was standing. And then there is always a fight about the tree, the lights, the tinset, the something. And then we ran out of time to finish but we had to get moving to go to Kate's soccer which is at the revolting time of 7:00 pm.


Good that we have no life and no commitments to the opera, theature or friends. However it is a real pleasure to watch her play soccer now. She is really very good and not surprisingly, when she started she wasn't so good at all. Plenty of energy but no skill. Now she still has all that energy and good skills.

Sunday we went off to the park with Miss Murray in tow, back to pick up kate for her skating lesson, "I hated it Mom" and then off to her tutoring. Whew. We finally found some time to go meandering and went to the movies without Kate who was safely nestled in with Kathy and Buff.

Tomorrow Kate and I will finish the tree.