I obviously fell behind on my entries the last few weeks. How could I not tell you about blow drying the Christmas tree?

We bought our tree in typical Seattle fashion, that is, in the pouring rain. It's an absolutely gorgeous tree and smells fantastic. And we left it on the porch while we rushed to clean the house for our tree decorating party. Saturday night, the kids and I swept, mopped, dusted, and scrubbed while John baked cookies. Sunday morning the kids went off to Sunday School (yes, that would be Jewish Sunday School) while I ran to the grocery story and rearranged furniture. At 11:00, John and I were ready to put up the tree. Which we managed to do without any swearing or hurt backs. At 11:15, we realized the branches were sopping wet, and we had a tree decorating party scheduled for 1:00.

So, I got out the stack of diapers we saved for just such an occasion and started patting the branches dry. Picture me on a step stool reaching far into this moment of forest and patting it with extra thick cloth diapers. I had not left room in my schedule for drying off the Christmas tree, and it wasn't working anyway.

We went to plans B and C. We actually did a little blow drying, and we put up the lights but didn't turn them on yet. You know all those stories about people burning their houses down from overly dry trees? We did not want to be the story about the family that electrocuted the little children on the Christmas tree.

After all that, the party was a great success. We had many many small children and their inherent mayhem putting up many many ornaments. Our tree looks lovely. And it is now quite dry.