@#$%!

ARGH!!!!

Why are my Christmas tree lights hatin' on me??

I've really been looking forward to this weekend. I love Thanksgiving dinner. LOVE it. Zuddy leaves town after dinner every year to spend time with his Dad and some other manly-men shooting poor, defenseless clay pigeons and Noodle and I decorate the tree and listen to Holiday music.

We had the perfect Thanksgiving. GG's turkey was AMAZING, as usual. The gravy? To die for.
TO.
DIE.
FOR.
Zuddy just ate gravy.
Just enough wine to make it interesting, but not boozy. It was super dark brown and flavorful. And I'm pretty sure it took 2 days to make.

After eating, we watched the kids sing High School Musical songs on their new Wii system. Soooo cute! Even Sweet Angel, who doesn't know the words. We sang loudly with her and she loved it!

Then? Our new tradition is to go to a movie. We saw Enchanted. I was excited to go see a movie, but I was thinking I wouldn't like this one.

Boy, was I wrong! It was a really fun little movie! Amy Adams is perfect in it.

Then, Noodle and I went home. Zuddy had already left, so Noodle and I make it our tradition to put up the tree on Friday morning.

This is where things went awry, people.

I thought I was soooo smart for putting the tree away last year with the lights still attached! So Smart **pat-pat on my back**. I just took the whole tree, still set up and put it away in the storage closet. Boy, am I brilliant!

So yesterday morning, when I brought out the tree and plugged the lights in, SOME of the them wouldn't work.
Long story short? Noodle decorated part of the tree, while I struggled with the lights, eventually taking most of them off.
I was SEETHING inside.
And I hadn't showered or changed out of my stinky jammies. Or brushed my fuzzy teeth.
All I could do was think all sorts of bad, bad words inside my head while listening to Harry Connick Jr. croon Holiday songs in the background.

And the Noodle, in all her Drama-Queen glory, was dancing around the living room like Amy Adams in Enchanted. Only she's not at the ball, people. Our living room is now littered with fake pine needles, foam packing peanuts clinging to every surface and broken ornaments everywhere.
Eventually I shut down the whole operation and we took a nap. When we woke up, I showered, we went to Target for more lights (of course I didn't buy enough. I still need more), got a festive dinner of Taco Bell and I fixed the tree: took off all the ornaments, re-lighted the tree and put the ornaments back on.
We skipped the Holidazzle Parade and went to bed after watching the 20/20 show on the Guinness Book of World Records. Did you all see that?
Probably not. I'll bet you all have a life out there, huh? The lady with the longest fingernails really skeeved me out.

So. It wasn't the festive day of decorating that I envisioned.

In fact, I told the Noodle if she ever plays with packing peanuts again, I will sell her and all of her belongings to the gypsies.

Happy *&^%$@ Holidays!