Christmas Decoration Challenges

With Thanksgiving now over, all eyes are focused on Christmas at our house. Before the turkey had even cooled off, battle plans were being laid for shopping. A lot of this focused on “Black Friday,” when stores entice normally sane people to skip sleeping to stand in line for hours to save a dollar on a Snuggie.

Normally, I try to fake an injury to keep myself on the shopping disabled list. I’ve thrown my back out lifting a turkey, dislocated a shoulder passing the gravy, even pulled a hamstring putting the leaf in the dining room table.

It’s getting to the point where I am running out of body parts to injure, which means this year I was stuck having to go shopping. Since there was no way I could limp my way out, I decided to take a different approach.

I decided that I would instead face the monster head-on by embracing the shopping and turning the tables. As my wife began making her shopping list, I reminded her that we needed to replace some of the decorations around the house.

Last year she came home with new tinsel for the tree that nearly killed me; it was blue. Not just any blue, Dodger Blue! For nearly a month I had to stare at that tree and the hideous tinsel that reminded me of how handily the Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks.

I vowed that the tinsel would never live to see another Christmas. Knowing my wife, if I left it up to her she would return home with orange and black tinsel just to drive me insane. No, if I was going to find any joy this holiday season I would need Sedona Red tinsel.

The Phoenix area is in the top ten in size for a metropolitan area. Given the large population and the multitude of shopping options one would think finding Sedona Red tinsel would be a simple task.

When the time came to go shopping I put on my Diamondbacks shirt, Diamondbacks sweatshirt, Diamondbacks hat, and my Sedona Red Nike shoes. I did this for two reasons: One, just about every piece of clothing I own has a Diamondbacks logo on it. Two, it allowed me to match each of these items against the tinsel to make sure it really was Sedona Red. The last thing I wanted was to come home and discover I bought Cincinnati Reds red or Houston Astros brick colored tinsel.

As I left the house, I assumed it would take me maybe 30 minutes to find all the Sedona Red tinsel I needed; I could not have been more wrong. None of the stores I visited had red tinsel, let alone Sedona Red tinsel.

And when I asked store employees if they had tinsel that would match my hat I was greeted with blank stares, their eyes as large as those on a deer trapped in the headlights.

After visiting nearly every Home Depot, Lowes, Target, Sears and Wal-Mart I was finally able to find tinsel that at least approximated Sedona Red, and naturally I bought every package they had. Obviously there is a run on Sedona Red tinsel and I didn’t want to take a chance that I would have to fill in with Dodger Blue had I not had enough.

So now I am ready for Christmas. The tree is up and the Sedona Red tinsel looks great. I even added a Diamondbacks hat to the top of the tree, that is until my wife came home and freaked out. It seems she must be an American League fan because she insisted I replace the hat with an Angel.