With the Thanksgiving holiday officially over (is it official?) and December just around the corner (the day after tomorrow!), it’s time to start cleaning my house and decorating for Christmas (no, I haven’t done it yet). Not only do I love decorating and stringing up lights, but I’m excited to have my parents visit, finally. It’s their first visit since we moved to L.A., and our first time hosting Christmas here, and there’s lots to do to prepare.
For one, I don’t actually live in a house. We moved from a big house with a ballroom in Maryland to our relatively small, two bedroom apartment here in Los Angeles, with probably half of our stuff in storage, including our nice China. We need to do some serious reorganizing and cleaning, and figure out where we can put everything. We want to use our nice China for dinner, so we need to figure out where we can put it. We need space for all the presents that my parents have shipped directly here that I’m not allowed to open. New Fact: It’s a special kind of torture to have boxes in your house that you’re not allowed to open.
This also means moving some furniture around, because we need to decide where to put the Christmas tree so that we can see it. We have a tree (a fake one; I’ve never owned a real tree and don’t have much interest in getting one) and a nice spot for it, but it’s set up behind the couch, so we can’t see it well or sit around it. In the past that wouldn’t matter because we’d be out of town, but with the family coming here, we’d like to move things around so we can sit around the tree. We also currently have another litter box in that spot, since we also got our third kitteh, Arya. In fact, it’s Arya’s first Christmas too, and I have no idea how we’re going to keep the tree upright. Moving the couch around will give us a good opportunity to see what Arya has lost under it. There’s probably bits of hot dog, and toys, maybe some vitamins or blueberries under there. It’ll be illuminating.
There’s also the matter of where to put all the people. With a few additional friends attending, we’ll have about 12 people (including us) at our “dining room” table. Yes, even when I speak to people I tend to put “dining room” in air quotes because it’s not really a dining room, it’s just a little table in the space between the kitchen and the living room. But don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my apartment.
My wonderful apartment, with its tiny “dining room.” How will we fit 12 people in here?
We have a few folding card tables and chairs, so we should be able to set up a bigger table. We can try to do buffet style, but I’d rather have a proper sit down meal. I’m sure we can do it; it just may take some creative arranging. And getting comfy with our friends and family.
So I’m happy that NaBloPoMo is almost done so that I can focus on getting ready for Christmas. I’m excited! Time to put on some of my favorite music, nice and loud, and go attack my apartment.
What about you, readers? Do you have big plans for the holiday? Are you the one who usually hosts your event, or do you need to do some creative rearranging too?
