Holiday Time

This past holiday weekend Wood and Cloth took a break from the nursery and worked on Thanksgiving and Christmas related activities.

First up was cooking Thanksgiving dinner.  We actually go over to the husband's parents' house and have dinner with his family.  We do however like to have a bunch of leftovers so every year I make a full on feast for us to eat at home.  This includes a 16 pound turkey (yes it is only the 2 of us but don't forget we do have 3 pugs...) artichoke stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, rolls, frog eye salad (this is for the husband as the wife will not eat it), and a cherry pie.  This year I also got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to do turkey stock and turkey noodle soup.  I think I forgot I was pregnant and maybe spending hours on my feet standing in the kitchen working on mounds of food was not a great idea.  Or maybe I was truly feeling my pregnancy cravings and baby girl wanted a ton of yummy turkey day related food.  Either way we ended up with a ton of food that we have slowly been working our way through since Thanksgiving.

It was a good thing that we had some much food as we burned a ton of energy and calories getting the house Christmas ready.  It was a bit of a challenge for me this year. It was hard for me not to be able to run bins of decorations up from the basement.  I could carry the lightweight things but after a few trips up and down I started to feel winded so the poor husband was left with the bulk of the work.  After all of the bins were upstairs in true Wood and Cloth tradition we put on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and started to deck our halls.

The husband and I have done a bunch of stupid DIY stuff over the years.  Sometimes the endeavour is stupid because we should have just purchased something and saved ourselves a bunch of trouble.  Sometimes it is idiotic because there is a chance of bodily harm (not usually death mind you).

One of these stupid activities is hanging 3 very large wreathes in our living room.  This year marks the third year of stupidity.  The first year involved the husband hand carrying the wreaths up a very tall and steep ladder and then swinging them into place.  We actually did have an incident that first year where the largest wreath fell down.  While no one was hurt we do have a pretty good scuff mark on the wall that we have left untouched to remind us of our moronic past.
The second year the husband got smart (well a bit smarter as if we were really smart we would not put up the wreathes in the first place).  The new plan involved rope and a pulley system.  The plan involved looping the rope around the wreath and the top rung of the ladder.  The wife would then pull the wreath up using the rope from the ground while the husband was on the ladder waiting to place the wreath into position.  This system was a success.  No wreaths plummeted to the floor and no husbands feel off of the ladder.

So for our third attempt we absolutely were going to use the rope method again.  One small problem.  The wife was no longer in the position to pull the wreath up.  This year the husband had to do the pulling until the wreath was up at the top of the ladder.  I then used my extra weight to hold onto the rope making sure the wreath didn't come down while the husband climbed the ladder to put the wreath in place.  Again no major incidents.  You will notice the "JOY" is a bit off but it was close enough.  I wanted to take pictures of the husband on the ladder and swinging the wreaths into place but that idea was quickly shot down as I was reminded about the husband's fear of heights and that he would like me to stay to steady the ladder.  Fair enough.

With the wreaths in place we went to work putting up the rest of the decorations.  It took me longer this year as I had to stop and take breaks quite frequently.  While I might like to think I can still do everything I did before I am about to start my third trimester and things are getting more difficult.
It took the better part of 2 days for me to get up all of the decorations. 

I couldn't help but think about how next year I will have a 9 month old to "help" me put up Christmas.  I might have to adjust some of my decorations as I am not sure that she will have the patience for Mom to hand tie with fishing line Christmas ball ornaments to the banisters... Next year I may just have to throw some tinsel around and call it good.