RDP Thursday : WRAPPED

Before I go into this story, I have to open it with this-

MY PAWSOME dog Hamish Macbeth likes to walk around with a blanket over his head.

When he does that it’s not like he has Spidey Senses and he misses things like furniture or walls or ME. Nope, part of the fun is to walk into things and then run away and before I can pull his blanket off of him.

Hamish’s love of being wrapped and draped in both paper and cloth started when he was a baby ( we don’t call them ‘puppies ‘ in our family, we call them babies) because the first time he was swaddled  was actually a lot of fun for him.

On Hamish’ first Christmas, when he was just over 5 months old, we were at my Sister’s for Christmas.

We got there as they were wrapping presents and Hamish jumped into the festivities. By that I mean he actually started jumping into bags and boxes and started to grab bows  and tags and rolls of  wrapping  paper from inside of them and then he ran from room to room dripping Christmas accessories  all around the house.

It didn’t help his naughty behavior when my Sister said he was just a baby and that it was okay when he grabbed a  bag full of presents and tried to run outside with it and  when he made off with a bag of bows clenched between his baby teeth my Mom didn’t say ” bad boy “. Nope. She just laughed and said,  “Wow he can run fast!”

Not everyone was charmed by Hamish’s antics.

My niece, Akela stood up from where she had been trying to wrap  gifts in front of the fireplace near the tree ( how’s that for a Christmas Eve image? )  and grabbed a roll of wrapping paper from out of the tote that was too big for Hamish to drag off or he would have at this point.

She unwound it with an officious snap.

” Pualani, ” she told her Sister, ” get the tape.”

With little effort they wrapped Hamish up and set him on his way.

And this is the way he stayed ( see the bow? nice touch, right? ) until the heat of his body warmed the tape up and his wrappings fell off.

Ok. I’ll ‘fess up, this story was just me  finding ways to post pictures of my dog because he’s AWESOME.  Still, this is one of my favorite Christmas memories so I hope you don’t mind I shared it here today.

Anita

RDP Wednesday: SCINTILLATE 

This year when I put up my tree, I had a plan- a vision I was pretty excited about it.

I was going for 1940’s vintage tree because I liked the warm colors and the funny shapes that some of the glass ornaments were crafted into. Also the Santas were kind of deranged looking. They had those pointy beards and little beady black eyes.

I was ready to decorate.

So I was in the middle of choosing some new ornaments ( on line of course ) to add to my older collection when my dog Hamish Macbeth started bringing me some of his toys to play with. When I looked at the stash he had left near my chair I saw his plushie fish, crab, seahorse  ( I call it his Sea Pony and no I don’t know why ) and a clam.

I put out a toe and made the clam squeak and then it came to me in a flash- a Sea themed tree, how great would that be?

I changed my plans.

I surfed around and before I knew it I had found the perfect set of ornaments. They were blue and silver. There were clams trimmed with pearls and Seahorses ( sorry, Seaponies ), there were fish, starfish  and even a sparkly whale.

And then out of nowhere I decided to add an ornament with a bees.

In addition to that, I decided to use my Krampus tree topper ( well, he wasn’t supposed to be a tree topper, he just ends up there ) and hey while I was going off the rails I  decided I would put up my Wolf ornament too.

It all made sense at the time.

A few days after I put my tree up I was going  add a picture of it to a Christmas Memories page I like to visit. I was pretty excited about that because it’s a fun page.

 But I realized  as I looked at those lovely trees that people had decorated with love and talent and vision, that I may have had a vision too – with my Sea theme but what I ended up with was a 1970’s truck stop waitress look so I named my tree Opal May.

Opal May seemed to be a great name for a 1970’s truck stop waitress.

And no,  I didn’t post my tree picture. I mean, well, I just didn’t.

I looked at the picture I was going to post  and saw that my tree was crooked and I had forgotten to add a string of blue lights, you know because it would have made Opal May really sparkle. The idea I had for my lights was stars twinkling on the ocean at night feeling. Lord. What was I thinking?

Yeah. It was a mess.

But my dog loves that tree. He keeps leaving his toys around it and he wasn’t whizzed on it once. He has wagged his tail when he was next to the tree and sent some of the baubles flying across the room but I put the ‘Labrador tail friendly’ ornaments on the lower branches so that’s okay.

Poor Opal May.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my tree and what I probably like the most about it is that it isn’t perfect and it has a good story.

I just wish it wasn’t titled to the side because it looks like it’s trying to run out the sliding glass doors and it’s hard to not take that personally.