Dave brought it home in the back of his ute a few weeks ago, triumphantly.
"I won the bet! Here she is!"
I looked at it and shook my head. "No WAY. You did NOT win the bet. The bet was you make a Christmas tree."
"I made it - I chopped it down. You owe me five hundred bucks."
"Bullshit mate. You owe me five hundred."
The stalemate has continued ... in the meantime, we both didn't know that you are supposed to actually water a real tree. We haven't, and it has been hot. (Oh glorious sun how I love thee!)
So now, all the freaking baubles are dropping off the tree, one by one. All of it's branches are visibly withering and shrinking.
"Mum, there goes another one!" Max calls to me, daily.
There is hardly anything left on the tree, now. But, I still turn the lights on it every night, and they sparkle and shine and you can't notice how crap it actually looks.
Last night, we went over for a BBQ at our friends house. It was so strange, being actually out at that time of night. Socialising. They are some of our closest friends, and when I got there I gave them some Christmas hampers and cried, and told them how much I have missed them this year and I'm sorry but we have all been at home hiding away from the world. They cried with me. And then we stopped crying, (because there always comes a time when you eventually stop crying, take a deep breath and go, well. Let's just get on with it then, shall we?) .. and we had a great night.
I made two of these little beauties ......
It's a Pavlova. I decorated one, and Max the other. I kept stopping myself from changing his strawberries around, from telling him to not stick his kiwifruit in so hard. Because, who really cares? It doesn't matter! Daddy is getting well again, hurrah!
The baby wasn't used to being out past his bedtime, and would not go to sleep. Dave was minding him during dinner ... I noticed the baby stopped grizzling, and thought to myself, yay - a peaceful dinner. After a while I craned my neck to have a look, to find the real reason he went so quiet.
Dave had giving him a rib to gnaw on.
Because, you know .... we are the FLINTSTONES, after all.
During dinner, the conversation got around to Dave, and how he got diagnosed with that wonderful stage three non-hodgkins lymphoma, right before we had the baby. Suddenly, all other conversation stopped, and people turned to us, itching to know what it was like. And I was itching to tell them. It's easier, now .. to talk about it. But when it was all happening, and I got accosted everywhere I went, my GOD I got so cranky with people and their stupid comments and intrusive questions.
But, these were our friends ... genuinely concerned and gobsmacked by exactly what happened, how we found out, what we were thinking and feeling. It was a relief, to talk about it. Dave and I kept talking over each other, rushing our words.
"We thought it was his appendix ... "
"I really thought I was finally getting abs for the first time ..."
" ...but it wasn't abs, it was his cancerous tumours poking through his belly."
Then we all started cracking cancer jokes, and I sighed and realised how much I have missed my friends.
We ended the night playing celebrity head. Of course I was Bono, and Maxie was his hero, Crash Bandicoot. (Note to self ... wear makeup when out. You are on the wrong side of thirty-five.)
Someone put Dave as being Anthony Robbins. He had no freaking clue, so we started giving him insane hints to help him. Finally, I put on the biggest, booming American accent and made big sweeping gestures with my hands. "C'mon! You can do it! It's all in how you think! If you think it and believe it, anything is possible. Yeahhhhhh!!!"
He guessed it straight away.
I kept looking over at him, sitting in his chair with his silly bit of paper stuck to his head. I thought about how this year he would turn off all the lights and just watch TV in the dark. Not wanting to talk to anyone, just a guy lost in Chemoland, wondering how the hell he had got there.
Oh my God it already is the best Christmas ever.
XOX
Ah, Eden.
ReplyDeleteYou have hit the nail on the head with why we don't have a christmas tree.
Did you know I even managed to bugger up a plastic one?
Yes, I did.
J
LOL I swear to gawd I just came back to the computer from watering our tree and opened this post, lol. They are a bitch if ya don't water them daily, a lot. The lights dry em out fast.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you had a good normal happy evening, what a gift. Thanks so much for sharing it!!!
Oh how I wish I lived in your neighborhood -- I bet YOUR american accent is so much better than my aussie one..
ReplyDeleteAnd you know my mother claims my father's goal was to keep the Xmas tree until St Patrick's Day -- in MARCH.
HAH!
Xo
Pam
I forgot about your new digs, I am all caught up now. I like it over here :)
ReplyDeleteHey it looks like you make a mean Pav!
I think I'd rather have a dead real christmas tree than the fibre optic concoction that (dis)graces our lounge room each year!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you got to have a good night out. I hope Christmas this year is fabulous for you all.
Because I am the ONLY one in the freaking house that tends to ANYTHING, watering has always been soley up to me. Last year I went fake. Everyone bitches but NOBODY bitches enough to offer to tend to a real tree.
ReplyDeleteOldest son did request that I at least buy a little pine scented paper tree (these are typically hung on the rear view mirror of the States finest pickup trucks) and stick it on our fake. I will only agree if it doesn't need maintanence.
You don't need makeup! Your face looks relaxed and calm for the first time in a while.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you are out enjoying yourselves. You guys deserve it!
It will take me time to get used to this blog missy. I love it, it's a new leaf- and you deserve it with the new year. I love the pictures, and the the truth in your eyes.
ReplyDeleteNot to be the over worrier... but that is me. If your tree is drying out.. do NOT turn on the lights. That is how fires are started. Several hundred of them a year.
ReplyDeleteA dry christmas tree plus lights that can get warm can make for a nice bonfire... in your house!! :-)
Oh yeah, and glad you had a good time with your friends. Isn't it nice to get some sort of normal back again?
So beautiful! the pictures, your words, your happiness, just ALL of it!
ReplyDeleteHugs,
-D
Sam FINALLY stopped crying (five million bajillion days later...see if I ever vaccinate him again) and I am HERE! Wooooo! Start the party!
ReplyDeleteBe careful with that tree, eh? The lights can catch it on fire if it's really dry and I'd hate to hear that your lovely house burned to the ground. Although if it means that you'd move next door to me in Greenland then hmmm....
I am beyond glad you had a lovely evening with friends. And that talking about cancer was not a rage-inducing experience. That means big things, my friend. Dave looks wonderful. And once Rocco finishes with that rib, you know he'll be bench-pressing the ute with one arm.
xoxoxo
Hearting you muchly!
Flicka