It Wasn't (Entirely) My Idea, I Swear

The Neighobours are moving away...and I'm so sad about it that I'm trying to pretend it's not happening. It's not like they are moving to, you know, Perth or anything...but they are moving far enough away that we won't be able to call them "The Neighbours" anymore. *sigh* Might have to keep using that name anyway, since I don't know that I can be bothered calling them "The People Who Live Too Far Away To Be Neighbours."

Saturday night The Neighbour's Wife decided to throw herself a "last night in this house" girls night in for some friends. As usual the twin delights of red wine and French cheese were promised, so you know I was going to be there! A couple of days before the event, TNW told me she wanted it to be a Christmas themed Girls Night...and she wanted an activity to do, to kinda jazz it all up.

Every single idea I came up with, she shot down.

Trim a tree? No - no tree in a Jewish household.

Sing carols in the neighbourhood? No, for 2 reasons. 1) These same girls couldn't handle the Sing Star at the weekend away and 2) as Jews, we all only know the first line of every carol.

Make eggnog? No. Too...just... no.

String fresh cranberries? No. No idea where to buy cranberries, and then she had the gall to get annoyed when I didn't know where to buy them either. Apparently any chef worth their salt knows where to buy fresh cranberries.

Make popcorn strings? Also no. Too messy.

I was up against some serious negative Christmas spirit, which is particularly funny because SHE is the one who invited ME to join the facebook group of "Jews who love Christmas." She also had a friend bringing Bing Crosby Christmas hits, and I was bringing along some Reindeer Food. Yet, she totally put the kibosh on all my good ideas. Harumph, Mrs Neighbour Scrooge.

NN and I had planned our Three Sweeties Xmas Dinner for the same night, and it was over a delicious dinner that I told her how my Christmas cheer had been dampened. NN, who is an all around brilliant person, had the idea that we get a bunch of Xmas decorations and trim an OUTSIDE tree at The Neighbour's house. Brilliant! Where, I wondered, does one find tinsel and other shiny crap, at 9pm, in a mostly Jewish neighbourhood?

Easy, says NN. The supermarket.

Is she kidding me? The SUPERMARKET? What dorks buy Christmas decorations at the supermarket, at 9pm on a Saturday night, in a Jewish neighbourhood? Ahem. Yes. That would be me and NN.

WHO KNEW that supermarkets carry this stuff? Even more vexing, who knew that this supermarket would have actual TREES for sale there, too? Of course, these were Jewish trees! On sale! Marked down by $7 to a whopping $13.99 for a SIX FOOT TREE - how could I possibly let a bargain like that go by? Seriously. Much to my extreme amusement, the supermarket had loads of stuff - tinkly balls, really horribly ugly tinsel...and bereft of an angel, we got a light up Santa hat for a tree topper. In lieu of stringy tinsel (the American sort) we bought a bag of party poppers, for popping onto the tree in the hopes that the strings would stick to the branches.

NN and I managed to use $24 and 10 minutes to purchase everything anyone might need to make an entire Christmas tree, decorations and all. (It was only later we realised we should've bought some lights, too...)

So NN and I rock up to the party, coming not only with BYO reindeer food and drinks, but also a tree and the full decorations. We all then spent a hilarious hour or so putting up a tree and decorating it to the nines...and then breaking open Christmas crackers and listening to Bing give us a bit o' White Christmas. Ahhh, contentment...until of course The Neighbour came home, looked at this tree and said, "OH. MY. God. This can ONLY be the work of emzee. Wait till Wife's Mother gets a load of this!"

The Neighbour's Wife then proceeded to laugh her pretty little ass off about the fact that she was going to tell her RELIGIOUS Jewish mother that the tree was totally acceptable, because THE WIFE OF THE TEMPLE PRESIDENT(e.g. me!) gave it to her.

Fabulous. My entire reputation wrecked because of a little tinsel and shiny balls. Oy! Next time, I'm going carolling!