Well, our tree is up.
And. I. Hate. It.
Our Christmas tree looks completely ghetto. I want to throw
open my beautiful French windows and throw this Christmas tree out of it. I
hate everything about it. I hate the size…too short. I hate the shape…looks
like it has a bad haircut. I hate the decorations…cheap balls. And most of all,
I hate the tinsel. I’m going to now blame…Paris. I want to go home to Santa
Barbara, get in my car, drive to my storage and get out all of my beautiful
Christmas decorations, stop by Target and pick up some regular fucking
Christmas lights, go to a regular fucking tree lot and buy a gigantic tree,
grab some greenery and a wreath, ship it all back to Paris and then maybe, just
maybe I won’t spend what is most likely my last Christmas in sheer agony
looking at my ghetto tree.
Let’s see, where do I start? Let’s start with the actual
tree. My husband, daughter and I decided that last Sunday we would go to pick
out our tree. Just that started a mini fight. We argued over the exact distance
to the tree lot. I accidentally said that we would need to go to Chatelet to
get the tree but I meant to say Les Halles. It’s the differential distance of
about a mile. That is a lot when you are walking, with a wheelchair in cold
weather. Gracie was wearing Converse sneakers with no socks. She was freezing.
Moron. On the way to the tree lot, David thought we should take a shortcut. We
ran into a barricade so David decided just to move the barricade. Two seconds
later, a lovely/not so lovely feminine/not so feminine police officer lady told
David not to move the barricade. This of course, sends my husband into a French
fit. He starts screaming at the police officer in French something to the
effect of “What else do you want me to do. My fucking wife is in a wheelchair,
you fucking moron.” Gracie was in shock and stood there with her mouth open. I
started screaming at David that he needs to shut up because you have to respect
police ladies and if he were in America it would be Ferguson all over again.
We managed to get to the Christmas tree lot without being
arrested. I wanted to go to this particular Christmas tree lot because it
supports a charity that helps the handicap of Paris. We start to argue about
the size of the tree. Gracie and I of course want a gigantic tree because we
are American and that’s how we roll. David is French, weird, and doesn’t want
to spend money on something “that we are only going to have for 25 days.”
Gracie and I start to roll our eyes and secretly plot to steal his cashmere
sweaters when we get home to punish him. We finally come to an agreement that
we will get their tallest tree because I am the boss of this house and if I
don’t get my way… I will cancel Christmas. So, David reluctantly starts to pay
for our Christmas tree and starts to tell the gentleman of the tree lot our
address for delivery. Two seconds later, I can hear David raising his voice
something to the effect of “This is a handicap tree lot and you don’t
deliver? What do you want us to do? Strap the Christmas tree to my wife’s
wheelchair, you fucking moron.” So no tree.
David is tapped out at this point and already hates
Christmas and it’s the first week of December. I decide that I will just order
a tree on the Internet and have it delivered. I ordered it from the same place
that I order butter, lightbulbs and maxi pads. That was my first mistake. My
grocery store tree arrives and I almost started crying. I thought, “Maybe I can
salvage this shit tree with pretty decorations.” I ordered gold balls, red
balls, beaded garland, little birds and that gold tinsel… the tinsel…the bane
of my existence. There is a reason why I have never used tinsel, that my mother
has never used tinsel and that my grandmother has never used tinsel…it’s
because it’s horrible. After my caregiver spent three hours putting the tinsel
up strand by strand…he showed me a picture and I almost started crying again.
But let me back up. Let’s back up to the light situation. I spent four days
looking on the Internet, going to shop after shop trying to find non-LED
Christmas lights. Apparently, this does not exist in Paris. How can this be
happening? Gone are the days of regular lights on a green strand? This can’t
be. When did the world switch to LED? I remember that I have some regular
lights left over from last year that I’m just going to have to make work. I
only have six strands. I test all of them. They all work. Thank you, God. So up
on the tree they go. They look okay and then suddenly the top strand of lights
starts twinkling. We cannot get it to stop twinkling. None of the other lights
are twinkling. Then, the middle strand goes out. I am now in the midst of
Christmas hell. So I decide to just turn the tree around so you don’t see the
big empty spot of no lights. Oh, by the way, French people can invent molecular
gastronomy but cannot manage to produce Christmas tree lights that connect
end-to-end. Can you imagine! There’s nothing I can do about the twinkly lights on
top. Choose your battles. We get the whole tree decorated and nothing is making
this tree look better. Nothing.
I have yet to find a wreath larger than a nickel in Paris.
My cat ate the tinsel and then started choking on the tinsel while she was
sitting on my bed. I started screaming for David to come get the cat but as
usual he ignores me for a few seconds. During those first few seconds of being
ignored, the cat started to barf all over David's side of the bed. That’s a
little something called poetic justice. David finally grabbed the cat and the
cat then proceeded to barf mid air and all over the floor. And then David
walked through the barf. Can this Christmas get any worse? Yes, it can…
Next up… The Garland Fiasco. Last Christmas, I spent one
week cruising around Paris in a wheelchair looking for garland. I learned the
hard way that you have to order garland from a florist. It is not readily
available at any tree lot. And, it’s super expensive. And, they sell it in
meters, not feet. Two weekends ago I went to the same florist that I had
ordered it from last year and reordered enough for two fireplaces…to be
delivered Monday, December 1. Monday rolls around and no delivery. Tuesday,
Wednesday…no delivery. I’m starting to have a Christmas panic attack. I called
the shop and not surprisingly, no one spoke English. I handed the phone over to
my French kinesiologist, Paul, so he could tell them what I wanted. Oh, did I
not mention that I did all of this while I was in the middle of my kinesiology
session? Well I did. I told Paul that I wanted “Christmas garland for the
fireplace.” Sounds like a simple request right? Nope, not in France. Paul kept
asking me, “What is a fireplace.” I said that it was a “chimney” which is only
a few letters off from “chiminée” in French. You would think he could deduce.
Nope. We had at least a two minute discussion about the word chimney. Finally
he figured it out and told them that I needed “Guirland Noël pour la chiminée.”
They asked how many meters did I need? Oh my God, I barely understand the
regular standard system let alone the metric system. I asked my Filipino
caregiver to get a tape measure and to measure the fireplace. She did not know
what a fireplace was either. I almost imploded. Finally, after I explained to
her what that big thing in the living room was that produces fires, she gave me
the measurements…in centimeters! I had to search the Internet to convert
centimeters to meters… Yes, all the while I was still having my kinesiology
session. Finally I realized I needed 4.5 meters for the living room fireplace.
I decided to not decorate the dining room fireplace because my heart is not
strong enough for this kind of stress. I finally wised up and just texted my
husband the phone number to the florist telling him to order 4.5 meters of
garland. He has a college degree so I figured he could manage the task. Three
hours later my husband walks through the front door and I asked him where my
garland was. He said, “What garland?” He said he never got my text. This time I
did start to cry. Finally, three phone calls and three hours later my garland
arrives. €16 per meter. That’s €72. That’s $89.11! For Garland. For one measly
fireplace. The garland was more expensive than the tree. The good news is that
it’s gorgeous. The bad news is that it’s so gorgeous it’s making my tree look
even worse.
So here we have gorgeous garland and the ugliest tree on
earth. I decide to separate the two. I had my caregiver move the tree to the
other side of the living room so it’s not next to its supermodel garland
sister. It doesn’t work. Now, half of my living room looks gorgeous and the
other half looks like a New York Puerto Rican parade. My husband and I start to
fight about the garland. I want to drape it but my husband refused to wire it
into the wall like a normal person. He said something about “our deposit.” I
might have called him retarded. My husband and I just start laughing. My
caregiver stands there dumbfounded.
So, that’s where we are at today. I hope I can salvage this
Christmas somehow but I think it’s going to involve a Christmas tree being
thrown over third-floor balcony into the streets of Paris. I’m going to go to
sleep and say my prayers to the Christmas gods that someone miraculously shows
up from Bergdorf Goodman's with a perfectly decorated tree from their Christmas
windows. That is the only thing that will salvage this Christmas. :-)
So, how are your trees coming along? So far so good from
what I have seen. I love all of the entries so far for the Christmas contest.
Everyone is so clever. Keep ‘em coming.
