About the massively thick trail of pine needles left from where the dead Christmas tree stood to where the dead Christmas tree exited the house, my husband said, "Let this be a lesson to you next year when you tell me you want a real Christmas tree because that is how Northerners do it."
Thing is, there was something so housewifingly* gratifying about vacuuming up the piles and piles of needles...
how each one came to life as the suction came closer and closer,
how they finally gave a jump and then disappeared,
the faint zzt, zzt, zzt as each tiny needle hurdled up into the canister,
the way all of the needles danced around together in the canister,
the dead pine smell that will softly emanate from the vacuum the first few times I use it after this very moment.
Clearly, I may need to purchase another coniferous tree this spring and kill it just so I can once again have the opportunity to indulge in such an activity.
*housewifingly (adv.) (haus-wīf-ing-lē) - A word used to describe any adjective describing any duty of a housewife. Example: The apron-clad woman was struck by the housewifingly lovely sight of the 100th stack of dishes that Christmas week with guests in the house, though she was quite sure that the 101st stack might not prove to be so housewifingly alluring.
(from The Kathleen's Dictionary, 1st Edition)
6 comments:
Love it! :o)
I think we should collaborate on a dictionary. I have a few of my own.
By the way, while I do agree that a live tree has appeal, that appeal fades after a few years. I'm rather relieved to be back to an artificial tree now (The Ex wouldn't dream of such a thing), especially since our cat decided that the tree was her FAVORITEST TOY IN THE WORLD and nearly destroyed it. We could not have stripped and revived a real tree on Christmas Eve as we did with this one.
Welcome to the club...though Paul did the vacuuming for me this year.
LOVE the picture on top of your blog!!!
While I'm sure you have us beat with the amount of pine needles dropping to the floor (and being scattered throughout the house), I feel like I should tell you that the day before we were putting up our (fake) Christmas tree, I found a (fake) needle behind my son's door.
Yes, from last year.
Seems I need to go over vacuuming skills with my 8 year old again...
....ahh, I will be thinking of this blog post as we clean up our own tree this week. So fun!
How weird is it that I can relate??!! :O)
I think your word is perfect!
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