Guess how much I love you

For the past two years I have hassled you poor souls to join my card exchange, going against my non-participatory personality for the sake of receiving cards in the vain attempt that I will at least, in my head, be awash in popularity. Both years I have cursed this odd desire to orchestrate such an event, which always seems like a good idea at first. However, as soon as I realise it's the second week of December and Christmas is a mere handful of days away, I wonder if I've made a huge mistake.

I spent the middle part of last week trying to catch up on work (who knew so many kids want to go to university?), and writing those damn cards. I'm a firm believer in putting personal messages in cards, so in essence, fucking myself over. I can't just write, "Merry Christmas!" and be done with it. I need to write a paragraph. Or two. At the end of it all my right hand was temporarily in the shape of a claw due to nasty hand cramp, and I vowed never to do this again. No doubt next year I will forget all of it and cheerily invite you all to exchange cards. I will then curse you, as well as myself, and then moan about it on here. I'm good like that.

With about 40 cards in claw, I made my way to the Post Office last Thursday. I went to a different Post Office, as the main one in the city is known for its hour long waits this time of year. They have serious comprehension issues regarding the staff required for lunchtime periods over the holidays. Two windows open for a huge queue at 12.30pm? Makes sense to me!

I'm rambling. At New to Me Post Office, I was greeted by a haggard, toothless old crone who shouted at me to not stand at the service window as one would logically do, but to go to the till next to the Post Office window instead. I did as commanded, and gave the gummy bitch the first of my group of cards. She grabbed the cards out of my hand, paged through the envelopes whilst examining the addresses and said, "Too late, too late, too late", slammed them back onto the counter and pushed them back to me with a self satisfied smirk. I looked at her, waiting for her to take the cards back, or at the very least tell me to put them on the scales so postage could be determined, but she said nothing.

I told her that I was aware that I had missed the last recommended posting day for cards going to the US, but this did not please her. She sighed heavily, and gestured at me to weigh the cards. When the weights were determined, she said, "You can't have any Christmas stamps, or self-adhesive ones for that matter. Since you're so very late posting these there aren't any left. That's what you get for waiting this long to post your Christmas cards." Pardon? Was this woman really lecturing me on my card-writing punctuality? I'm not even trying to hear that shit when The Dude is rabbiting on about it. I even had the courtesy to separate my cards into same-weighted groups and by continent, yet still she was vile, the dentally challenged cretin.

Hoping that the aggression would subside, I got my card out to pay for my massively overdue haul. When the total of £35 was announced (that's $70 American dollars kids, which is just how much I love you, no more), Madame Sans Dents snapped, "That's a lot of money to be spending on Christmas cards." I said it was just a side effect of living 4000 miles away from where your home country, to which she sniffed, "It's perhaps a bit too much money to spend on cards." And with that, my dreadful exchange with the evil old bat was finished.

Anyway, carrying on the so-very-festive nature of this post, I thought I'd post a photo inspired by Cecily's caged tree post. As the mother of a very destructive and inquisitive toddler, we also had to barricade our poor tree. Otherwise, P would eat the tree (fake) and wrapping paper, and likely crack some teeth swinging around and gnawing on the heavier ornaments. We don't have a suitable gate to surround the tree as Cecily does, living in a mousehole-size British flat and all, so we stuck our bedroom blanket box in front of it instead. There is a gap between sofa and blanket box, so we have stacked about 4 cushions in the space. However, P is also a climber and often tears apart our cushion wall in mere seconds. I need a nap from this preventative activity alone.



The kid loves this tree. It's the first thing she rushes to see in the morning, and the last thing she says goodnight, or in her case, "ta ta" to before bed. I don't want to think about the tears when it has to come down.



Stupid blanket box! Trying to keep me from my beloved! Hey - you with the brown hair and boobs too big for your frame, stop taking pictures of me!



P after making peace, however temporary, with the blanket box. This is her winter casual look.

So taking off on this - what sort of tree blockade do you have to set up? Pictures on your blog people, pictures!