It may sound cheesy, but every morning Kris and I check out our window for two things: whether we can see the mountains and how many chimneys have smoke coming out of them. The answers give us at least a small idea of what the day will be like. The answer to the first question, and the inspiration for the name of this blog, is typically no. This morning the early winter fog had lifted giving a beautiful view of France.
The second question focuses on the bottom half of our view and is a little more obvious: the more people using their fireplaces, the colder it is outside. Recently it has been about eight or nine. As I said before, today started as a 14-chimney day.
The brisk air and snowy mountains seemed a fitting start for a day with the goal of finding and decorating a Christmas tree. Having such a goal was oddly refreshing after weeks of goals like "get a key to our mailbox," "fix the bathroom door so that it closes," "find out how the leasing agency lost our 1800 francs," and "get a working fridge." After weeks of being ignored by the agency, finding the right person to talk to, and a flurry of contractors, we are finally able to shift our focus to other things. That meant today started with a trip to Ikea.
This trip to Ikea (hopefully our last) was to fill in all of the holes that we had discovered in our household since moving in. Some holes were small, like more plates and a shelf for the bathroom. Others were larger. Apparently, when buying a duvet for a new bed, the dimensions of the duvet exactly matching the dimensions of the mattress is not a convenience, it is a highly misleading coincidence. Perhaps, if one sleeps alone and never rolls from side-to-side more than once in a complete night of sleep, this arrangement can work. If, however, there are two people sharing the bed and one rolls around a lot, or likes to read for a while with her knees up, or systematically rolls to face his spouse and grabs the blanket then turns away and lets go at least a dozen times per night ... then this arrangement is non-ideal. We needed a bigger blanket.
Our list set and our goals clear we blasted through Ikea in record time. On our way out we stopped in their holiday shop, grabbed the ready-made pack of ornaments and looked for a tree. The trees were small, but nice enough, interestingly displaying hanging upside-down from the shop ceiling. After a few minutes of looking a friendly looking employee smiled her way to us and asked if she could help. We explained (with much stumbling and ample pointing) that we were looking for a tree.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, clearly happy to understand our question. She smiled brightly and said, "We don't have any trees."
Thinking we had misunderstood we asked again, pointing to the trees on display.
"No," she smiled again. "Out of stock. Anything else?"
We shook our heads and she smiled off. Mostly victorious we headed back home to drop off our things and run to the grocery store. Thankfully, the grocery store had Christmas trees for sale. Each box was clearly labeled:
For those of you who don't understand German, the phrase roughly translates as, "Basic: The Economically Priced Christmas Tree." Obviously assured that we were getting the best bargain for our money, Kris and I grabbed a tree and headed for the registers.
That is, we started to. Our triumphant exit was interrupted by a box of small, and rather hideous, tree ornaments. For any of you who know my husband, you know that he has moments of odd taste. His stuffed animals include a mandril, an octopus, and an opossum. The last he liked to keep under the bed to scare me when I went looking for lost socks. So, you can imagine his joy at finding small squirrels seemingly made from old pine needles, fake fur, and bad vibes. Some of them were deeply unsettling. One was missing an eye. Kris took a few minutes, picked out the "cutest" one, named it Henri, and took it home to live in our Christmas tree.
Here's how it all turned out.
The tree
and, of course, Henri.
Merry Christmas.
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