O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

Have you written your Christmas cards yet?  I’ll bet you have, and posted them too.  I bought my cards in September, left them on my desk, and told myself they’d be written and in the post box by 30th November.  This year I was going to be super organised.  Unfortunately, the buying of the cards was the only bit of early organisation.  Earlier this week, I returned to Bluewater for a final attempt at purchasing Christmas gifts.  Hurrah, success!  This time I walked around the mall with arms and shopping trailing across the floor.  I was dying to use the Ladies, but no chance.  Ever tried using a public loo with a dozen bags strung about you?  It’s a non-event.  So I drove home cross-legged, dumped everything in the hallway and then had a minor panic attack about finding time to wrap everything, slapping away a sudden vision of handing out presents wrapped in Boots and PC World carrier bags with a bow dangling sorrowfully off one corner.  THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN!
          My daughter, Eleanor, then cornered me.
          ‘When are we putting up the tree?  Can we do it on Sunday?’
          ‘Oh, er, good question,’ I replied, mentally calculating the time required to walk the dog, get back, swift change of clothes, charge out to look at apartments with my son, race back, cook Sunday roast, clear up, drive Eleanor back to drama school (which is miles away), tear home again, rip open a packet of Christmas cards, write out just the one, before nose-driving onto my desk with tiredness.  There isn’t enough time in the day right now.
          ‘So?’ my daughter prompted.
          ‘Do you really need me to help?’ I asked.
          ‘Where’s the Christmas spirit?’ Eleanor complained.
          Search me.  I lost it years ago.  I tried a different tack.
          ‘You do such a fabulous job decorating the tree, so much better than me.’
          When trying to get out of something, go for flattery.
          ‘We will do the tree on Sunday at noon,’ my daughter said, her tone of voice defying negotiation.
          I was really hoping to put it off until next weekend.  Or the one after that.  Or, heck, Christmas Eve.  Apart from anything else, I truly cannot decorate a Christmas tree.  It ends up looking like the decoration box had a vomit attack, with baubles and tinsel dripping off random branches.  Wherever I place a bauble, you can bet my daughter’s fingers will be re-arranging it seconds later.
          ‘No, Mum.  We need to have two unicorns equally placed.  See?  One to the left. One to the right. Actually, have you got a tape measure?  I’ll make sure they are both perfectly equidistant.’
          Eleanor is a nightmare for OCD when it comes to things being symmetrical.  As for wrapping up the Christmas presents – let’s not go there.  No way am I sellotaping things up with my dear daughter monitoring whether the wrapping paper’s pattern lines up.
          ‘Right, noon it is,’ I said, resigning myself to the task of getting the tree out of the garage, shaking out hibernating spiders, assembling the thing and knowing within minutes the cat will be wanting to climb it and the dog will be ransacking the decoration box and running off with the baubles.  Perhaps I’ll put on some Christmas Carols to get me in the mood!  Which reminds me.

Christmas Carols for the Psychiatrically Challenged
Schizophrenia: Do You Hear What I Hear?
Multiple Personality Disorder: We Three Queens Disoriented Are
Dementia: I Think I'll be Home for Christmas
Narcissistic: Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
Manic: Deck the Halls and walls and house and lawn and streets and stores and office and town and cars and busses and...
Paranoid: Santa Claus is Coming to Get Me
Borderline Personality: Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
Obsessive: Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...