Who says you can’t have Christmas at the Holiday Inn?

It’s December 17th and we are in the panhandle of Florida, smack dab in the middle of cookie-baking and gift-wrapping and last-minute shopping. Oh such stressful bliss. I’m not sure how I got here the very week before Christmas, with the potential that we’d have to stay through the ever important eve of Jesus’s birthday? Oh I know. What happened is that it was a dreadful, bleary day and my laundry had frozen to the washline, when my huzbun suggested that there was an eight day job coming up in Florida. Of course, I’m gonna think  it’s a great idea. I mean, what could be better than sunshiny beaches in the middle of winter? So I said. Uh Huh. And off we went on a little roadtrip to the not-so-sunny south.

Yesterday Ari and I set out in a blustery cold rain to get acquainted with the town of Pensacola. That’s about the time I started missing those cozy little flames in our fireplace at home. Consequently I also began to miss the massive stack of firewood which glows at night in the twinkling lights we strung above it, outside our door. And soon I was even missing our Christmas tree. Yes. My beloved little twig tree. Unconventional as it is, it makes me delirious with holiday joy. So delirious in fact, that I get visions of plum pudding whenever I behold its homespun beauty.  Just a few weeks ago, I created it, with twigs from a lonely backyard tree. I adorned its brittle branches with all manner of homemade critters and plum ornaments and tenderly referred to it as our “Plum Pudding Tree.” Don’t ask me why I would name a bunch of twigs after a soft, fluffy food substance. It’s just the way my brain works. Whatever. All that to say…

Yesterday I missed being home around the holidays. And it was only the first of eight days.

So to make myself feel better, I decided to Christmas-ify the four walls we are gonna call home for awhile. I found this completely adorable snowflake garland at Target, which I hung ever-so-delicately (without nails or tape, mind you!)onto the oblong mirror facing our bed.  While I was at the Tarjay, I also spotted an orange clove candle that smelled of an orange orchard in a clove paradise. Apparently it was made by Mrs Meyers herself! Pardon me if I am still 2009, but I did not know that my favorite brand of cleaners was also making candles! O. my. goodness. That was possibly the happiest discovery I’ve made in two days. At least!

I went on down the road to what I believe is the ONLY natural foods store in this God-forsaken town. And you know I gotta have me some flax crackers and dehydrated celery. Well, maybe not that. But I did need some organic cheese sticks for the beanstalk. And a few other major wants. Like vegenaise for the real egg sandwiches I’m going to make for us while we’re here. Lord knows that is the thing I miss the most when we’re traveling. Real eggs. With real bacon. On a real english muffin. Or a british one. Either one would do. But it’s gotta be real, folks. It’s gotta be actual food, my dear kindred spirits. I don’t wanna be chowing down on petroleum particles and sodium nitrates. OK? Ok. So back to the natural foods place. When I got there, I happened to park my car right beside (what are the odds??!!) a gorgeous bush with weeping branches, loaded down with tiny green leaves and red berries. So without even batting an eye, I ripped one from it’s life source and threw it in the car. Don’t underestimate a desperate, hotel-trapped soul looking for some holiday cheer. At that point I was out to get Christmas, about as much as I was out to get cheese sticks. And hey, it seemed like it was fair game. Like maybe it was a public tree. Just wanting to be picked. (On private property!)

Hmm. What a life I have.

Then while I was driving back, what should I see out of the corner of my right eye, but a World Market? Of course I had to go in and see what they were selling.  Turns out they were, in fact, selling the cutest little handmade ornaments, which, technically, I have no use for at the moment. But before I knew it, I had my arms full!

Uggh.

Finally, I came home and put my baby in her make-shift bed, and sighed as I flopped down on a big white square one, instead. I paused as I reflected about taking the family on business trips to exotic places, and how it always sounds more glamorous than it actually is. I reflected deeply about what makes me decide to come to a strange, lack-lustre town the week before Christmas. And why I don’t just let a hotel room be a hotel room, for crying out loud.

Now I’m gonna have to sneak a lighter in here to light the candle…

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