Feeling Festive

This is a story about a Christmas tree and a bathtub...

For the 8+ years that I've lived in Sydney, I have always struggled with Christmas. It's a sentiment that most Northern Hemisphere expats seem to share; celebrating Christmas in the middle of summer is just weird. So every year when December comes around, I'm a bit of a Scrooge. There's also the fact that Christmas Day happens to be my birthday, which adds to the pressure around the day. 

But having kids has definitely helped me to embrace the whole Australian Christmas thing. This year, especially, I've found myself very motivated to create a magical holiday for the girls. That said, I was not planning on getting a real Christmas tree. We had decorated our small fake tree like we usually do, and I was totally ok with that until last weekend...

I was on day 7 of solo parenting (my husband was away for work) and I was pretty tired/over it. It was a hot day and the girls and I were walking to the park. We passed some boys selling Christmas trees and stopped to ask about them. The price was pretty good, and the boys were so nice and polite, and Clementine was so excited. Before I knew it, in a fit of homesickness and motherguilt, I bought one. The boys very kindly offered to carry the tree all the way back to our house (because I was on my own with 2 kids and a pram). We got it upstairs and propped it up against the wall so I could start looking for our tree stand. Turns out, we don't have a tree stand. Deeply regretting my impulse purchase, we headed back out to buy a stand at 6pm (a very bad time as any parents of small children will know) only to find that every store in our area was sold out. 

We came back home and I got through the dinner, bath, bedtime routine on my own. Not knowing what else to do, I put a big bucket in the bathtub, filled it with water and stuck our tree in it. On the street, the tree hadn't seemed all that big, but now staring at our Christmas tree in the bathtub, it suddenly looked enormous. My husband got home late that night, exhausted and sweaty from his long flight. The first thing out of his mouth was, "I'm gonna go take a shower." His reaction upon entering the bathroom was very, very funny. 

My friend ended up lending us her spare stand and we decorated the tree while listening to carols. And while the whole rigmarole was tiring, in the end, it was totally worth it. There is something so magical about having a proper Christmas tree in the house, and the girls love it. It's also made me feel much more festive, an added bonus.