OK, so I have a question: Do we import 10,000 extra cars every November/December – just for the craic – then ship them off again?
It used to be that so long as you avoided morning/evening work traffic; lunch hour; and about 3pm when school let out, you could move around the island fairly nippily. Well, as soon as I hit West Bay Road at 11am on Wednesday last week, I could see that not only had the Christmas breeze arrived; it had also brought a honking line of vehicles in its wake. At first I thought maybe KFC was even busier than usual (seriously, the Colonel has a licence to print money), but no – this was the new normal. It seemed suddenly everyone was venturing out of their houses to see what the shops had on the shelves or if the sun was myth or reality. I realised I hadn’t seen the like since… last November. (Cruise ships in town + hotels being full) X Christmas shoppers = a chicken overtaking my Ford Expedition on the way to town.
On the plus side, there is definitely a bit of a thrill in the air at this time of year – there’s a whole lotta bustle goin’ on. The lights shine brightly on the roundabouts, around houses and hotels, and George Town and Camana Bay are decorated in all the colours of the season. What with that, the Christmas concerts and festive events, it’s nearly impossible to be a bah-humbug about it… unless you’ve got 15 minutes to get to the bank and the driver of the car in front appears to be counting every blade of grass lining the street. One jingle bell, two jingle bells…
After a particularly trying three hours behind the wheel, where I came back to the house feeling like I’d accomplished nothing, I reckoned we’d get the Christmas tree out and set it up. Surely, that would bring some welcome cheer to my day. Of course, the moment I walked in the door, four of our many cats were clamouring for love and food, so they had to be dealt with first. But then, I turned my attention to our boxed Tannenbaum.
I don’t know if you recall me writing about this tree, but last year I made the mistake of walking into Celebrations’ Enchanted Christmas Store. I say this, because it was like putting an addict amongst the pigeons. There, sitting in the middle of gorgeous decorations and lights, was a majestic 9-foot flocked Aurora Spruce that was about as evergreen as they come. No need to water it or worry about dropped needles – this was a maintenance-free beauty. All it took was a visit from the Christmas fairy – Jo-Anne Brown – to laud the advantages of such a tree, and I was sold!
Unfortunately, much like Clark W. Griswold (“little full, lotta sap”), I hadn’t measured the area where we were planning to put it. Not long into the assembly process, the branches were being shoved into walls and the top was squished against the ceiling. We therefore had to go with a smaller version because it was either that, or squeezing past it for a month.
This time around, it was to be positioned inside the front door in an area with much higher ceilings, so we would be golden. I dragged out the box and started removing the pieces of the tree. I’d forgotten how heavy and unwieldy they were. Down went the stand onto the floor, followed by the section with the largest fronds. Immediately my all-black outfit was covered in ‘flocking’ as I attempted to position the post in the hole of the stand while cats leapt around me, getting between my feet. It’s a Christmas miracle that I didn’t end up falling on the tiles, suffocated by the base of a giant spruce.
Once I finally got that piece situated, the rest became easier the higher I went. As I climbed the ladder to plonk section ‘A’ in place, I marvelled at the simplicity of it all – and it had built-in lights! We plugged it in and it was immediately ready to be decorated. That being said, I was happy to sit down to revel in my handiwork for a few minutes before moving on to the next phase.
Just as I took a seat on the couch, I heard a rustling somewhere in the vicinity of the tree. I looked over, and moving up through the branches, like a mini panther, was our 10-week-old kitten. We’d found him on the bypass a month ago, and with the Humane Society full to bursting, we decided to add him to our clowder of cats. Before I could get into a standing position, the tree began to lean, and then over it went, hitting the hallway table and anything else blocking its fall.
The kitten flew off, uncaring and unscathed, and I prepared to clear up the mess and start all over again, perhaps a little less merry than earlier. It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
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