I AM jolly Darnit!!

Tis the season to be jolly fa la la la.

Yeah.

I'm jolly.

Yup.

I am.

I promise.

:)

LOL!!


On waking this morning, it was apparent that my husband and I should've switched sides of the bed last night, because obviously his temperament required him to rise from the other side of it this morning.

On discovering that my husband had started out his day in a 'mood,' I said to myself, "Well, everyone is allowed to wake up grouchy every once and awhile. Just get the kids ready for church, and let him do whatever he's going to do. No nagging. No questions." My only question to him was if he was going to church with us or not.

He replied in a negative sounding grunt, and the kids and I went on our merry way.

While we were gone, the King of the Knee Highs took it upon himself to put up the Christmas Tree.

All by himself.

When we returned home, I gave the expected response of, "Yay honey! Thank you! Wow. You vacuumed before you put it up? Wow. I'm so impressed." The kids each had an appropriate response, with our littlest Knee High giving the crowning squeal of delight.

Lunch time, then nap time, and afterwards came time to decorate the tree.

The King's mood had not improved, and so with forced merriment, so that our children could enjoy themselves, we put up the ornaments, with only a few minor grunts from Daddy.

Why is it that this time of year is supposed to be so grand, happy, jolly, and yet every year someone in the family gets the "Bah Hum" Bug, and is sick of the holidays even before they've begun?

This year is the first year that we've ever had outdoor lights on our home, and my husband was mostly cheery during the erection of the lights and all the necessary hooks and nails that it takes to hang these outdoor decorations. I was so proud of him. We didn't have a single time of frustration in the two days it took us to put them up.

Today was a different story. It was like trying get a growly, hibernating bear to be cheerful that you're waking him up 3 months early. It was not easy in the least.

I was finally forced to ask him to either fake it or go do something else. Fake the cheerfulness for the kids' sake, even if he didn't feel like it.

This time of year is so hard for so many, when it should be 'the most wonderful time of the year'....



(*45 mins later*)

Where was I? Oh YEAH! That's right, being of good cheer.
Even as we're putting our oldest child to bed, the bathroom upstairs starts to sound more like a lake than a flushing toilet. Cut to James running in, to find that the floor has 2 inches of water in it, and we have no clean towels.

I run downstairs to find some towels, clean or not, and that's when the real shock comes. "JAMES!" I yell.

Niagra falls is taking place in our kitchen. We have no clean towels, and what towels we do have have had their better soakability days.

So James grabbed a comforter from upstairs that I then threw on the floor, and he worked on the bathroom upstairs until most of the toilet water was soaked up.

Crisis is now over. Things are wet. Table and chairs have been lysol'd and scrubbed. The floor has been lysol'd and scrubbed with pine sol. The towels are in the washer. The comforter is in line for the washer, along with my husband's Carhart coat which was another victim.

L's Winter pictures, which we were going to return tomorrow to the school, now must be purchased because they are wet. Some other non-essential things got a soaking, but for the most part, all is well.

This incident however, did not do well for my husband's mood, as you may have guessed. He just took the dog out for potty time, and I have to say, I'm kind of glad we took the choke collar off the pooch, or it would be a strangle collar right about now.

I'm off to finish some Christmas decorating, fold a mountain of laundry, and try to appease the unhappy head of household with my ever-so-agreeable jolly attitude.

Blessings!

ps. did I mention that this week we got 11 inches of snow? Yup. 11. All the while our parents' homes in a town not 50 miles from here received not a flake. Our home was buried for a couple of days, and is now beginning to appear out of the snow drifts like a mirage.

Alas, the kids are not happy. For although it's been very pretty to look at, it's also only been about 22 degrees out, which, being the Queen of the Knee Highs that I am, I have decreed is too cold for little fingers and toes to go out in. I've told them that when it warms up a few degrees, out we'll go to break in our sleds. But not today. Poor babies! All that snow and a mean mommy who doesn't want their fingers to fall off.