Still Life With Berries

I purchased two of these picks (to use on two wrapped gifts if there was a need for two wrapped gifts) and stuck this one into an empty, older, wooden thread spool.  I liked it. So I called around yesterday and found two more and had them transferred to me.  I think I will try the third of our stores and see if they have any.  I love the way this tiny little vignette evokes "Christmas".  Actual colors here. No iPhoto boost.

My husband's workmates managed to have a company Christmas party yesterday.  Sunday, the parents of two long time, important members of the company were in a terrible auto accident.  One died.  So, we weren't in the merriest of moods and they, of course, were not with us.  But, as our leader said, it is Christmas and we do want to share a good meal together.  We also shared a great many alcoholic beverages.  I had three.  And a "chocolate cake" shooter which was mostly vodka.  Because of the number of beverages and the quantity of tequila in each drink, I enjoyed the tableside cooking/entertainment much more than usual.  It's that Japanese thing with the onion volcano and the twirling of cooking tools and the flipping of rice balls into the mouths of the 7 people in the audience at our table (one of five tables).  Our chef flipped tiny rice balls to six and when it came to me, he had a giant ball and I put up my hands, laughing, and said "No!!!".  Usually, I would be grumpy and not much fun.

Some of the need for alcohol was that we had had a really stressful and F***** up day at work.  We never laugh at work.  We complain a lot.  We get angry at each other.  And, to top it off, not one customer wishes us a happy holiday.  I say it to everyone I wait on.  I treat every repot like it's going to my house. I feel like I'm working in Potterville.  (It's A Wonderful Life).

I apologized to my greenhouse coworker regarding my stress levels when five carts of poinsettias showed up unannounced (we had to rearrange whole tables) and she said she found me stress free and in fact measured her stride to mine to calm herself down.  Imagine that?

Instead of making more Holiday Boxes, I wrapped pine cones in wire and attached the little trios to a stick.  We use two of these pine cone sticks for each Holiday box.  We had run out and needed more.  And instead of having the teenagers at the front counter make them (oh, they do an awful job), I said, let me do them, right.  Less stress for the person making the Boxes.  Usually, me.

My Christmas Tree is up in the living room and we had to move several pieces of furniture to fit it in  but I love the full, bouncy branches and the way the top presses into the ceiling, like the tip is up in the attic with a star on top.  The tree is "wild".  Not trimmed.  This is the kind of tree I remember from my childhood in the early 1950's.  I wish I had the large box of "special" ornaments we selected each Christmas when I was a child.  My mother gave it to my drunk brother and he left it someplace he had to vacate in the middle of the night.  The beautiful nativity also.  They don't make ornaments like that anymore.  And I refuse to buy the cheesy ones from China.  I do frequent antique stores looking for the ornaments I remember.  Too few.  Too fragile.  And there was the "big" tree accident one year when I caught my sweater on a tree limb and pulled the tree over.  A good number of my santas and angels were broken.  I cried.

Tomorrow, I will unwind the 600 new lights I bought at Target and get them on the tree.  G will bring the ornament box down from the attic.  I will take all the sock monkeys off the small tree and put them on this tree and I may buy six of the pink, red and white swirled ornaments we have at work.  Sparkly. It's beginning to look like Christmas.  We even have some snow!