Deck the Halls

Helmut is flying home from Russia and will lay over in London for the night and return home to Holland on Sunday morning. That left me home all weekend doing the single parent thing. The kids were up at the crack of dawn so we decided to go look for a Christmas tree. There is a huge garden center across the highway from our house, so we headed there first. I was impressed with all their selection and beautiful and inexpensive flowers. They had some Charlie Brown looking real trees, so we opted for an artificial (much to Josh’s chagrin). We ended up with a 7 foot slim line tree (I figured a slim line was better in small living space).

Sam was dying of hunger so we stopped at Bagel Alley for lunch. Then the day took a turn for the worse. I stopped by the phone place again to see about getting a land line. We are having a ton of trouble with phone and internet connection because the previous tenant never cancelled their service and are still paying their bill so the internet company can’t turn off their account and switch it over to us. What a pain! The guy at the phone place said he would call around on Monday to see what else could be done about it. We ran around the Langstraat (our town shopping street) and picked up an iron, ironing board, crock pot and some groceries.

We came home all pumped to put up the tree. I am taking the crock pot out of the box (bear in mind I had to pay US$154.00 for this “specialty item”) and I drop the glass lid on the floor. It shatters into a million pieces. I felt like lying down on the kitchen floor and throwing a fit. The lady at the store said she would contact her supplier and see about getting a replacement, but I am not holding my breath. A favorite phrase here in Holland is “not possible.”

I pulled myself back together and we started putting up the tree. The lights I bought are ridiculous. It is hard to explain (and quite honestly, hard to comprehend when you can see them in person) but they start at the plug on one strand and then branch out into three strands that loop back around into the plug. So once they are on the tree, it pretty much looks like you wadded them up into a ball and threw them at your tree. Needless to say, I was not a happy Mom. Bah Hum Bug! We did get our tree up with the lights and a few ornaments I bought to tide us over until I real ones come in the shipment. The kids went on and on about how beautiful it looks, but I really think they were trying to coax me out of my dark place.

I am looking forward to a new week. Helmut will be home on Monday and Tuesday to get some government paperwork done. I am hoping and praying for good news about the timeliness of our shipment arrival. We have the Sinterklaas celebration on Tuesday night, the boys’ choir concert on Wednesday night, Sam’s birthday on Friday and Little Helmut’s basketball tournament in Rotterdam all day on Saturday (not to mention a sports practice of some sort on every day but Friday). On second thought maybe I am not looking forward to a new week.