Merry Christmas from Elite Energy Mobile Personal Training! (Victoria, BC)
Merry Christmas to all of my personal training clients and fitness friends!
I would like to thank you all for allowing me to kick your butt this year. I did it with your best interests at heart, but I also enjoyed it:)
Christmas was a bit different for me this year. We had two changes: one minor and one major.
The minor change (or at least I thought it was minor) was we decided to get a fake tree this year. When I was little, my siblings and I would go into the woods with my Dad on Christmas Eve to cut down a tree. My Mom would be at home starting the turkey. Just so you know I have five brothers and sisters, so this was like a major expedition. My Dad must have been crazy to agree to take us all in one vehicle! Since we always got our tree from the forest, I never knew that you could buy a tree from the store. I know that sounds pretty funny, doesn’t it? It wasn’t until I left Port McNeill that I was like, “Oh, you can just buy a tree anywhere? That’s way easier!” When I moved to Nanaimo and finally Victoria, I still always had a real tree although I admit I didn’t hunt for one in the forest. I went to the store and bought one like a regular city girl:) This year, Derek and I talked about getting a fake tree. Our reasons for thinking about switching were:
1) I wanted to put it up earlier than December. Derek still wanted to wait until the beginning of December, but I love Christmas so much that I wanted to put it up in November. I know this might seem early, but I really like Christmas:) Now, you can’t do this with a real tree because by Dec 25th it would surely be dead or looking pretty unsightly. So if you want a November Christmas tree, it can’t be real.
2) The needles! You were probably expecting this reason because anyone with a real tree knows that the needles fall off every day and they get EVERYWHERE! The thought of a Christmas tree without the messy needles was pretty great!
3) Our cat, or should I say Jordan’s cat, loves to drink the Christmas tree water. We had to fill up the Christmas tree water everyday because we weren’t just hydrating a tree, we were also hydrating a cat who must have thought this was special water because she stopped drinking the water out of her bowl to indulge in this magical water in the living room.
4) Bad store hours! The Christmas tree store was never open when we went to go buy a tree and none of the local grocery stores had their trees yet. This was at the beginning of December, after I managed to wait all of November, and it was the final nail in the real tree coffin. Derek went to the store three times to buy a Christmas tree, but they were always closed.
So after some discussion with our co-workers and some more discussion between Derek and I, we went to Canadian Tire and bought our first fake tree.
When we pulled it out of the box, we didn’t like it:( It looked fake! But after about an hour of tree “fluffing” it started to look really good. We started decorating it and noticed that the branches didn’t droop under the weight of the Christmas decorations; they stayed exactly where we had put them. Another bonus! What we didn’t realize was how “traumatic” this would be for Jordan and Brittany, my daughters.
I knew that Jordan probably wouldn’t like having a fake tree, so Derek and I hoped that she might not notice right away. When she first saw the tree, she was oblivious; she assumed it was real. She thought it was great! Derek and I both thought that we had successfully fooled her. However, a few hours later I got this text from her: “Mom, the tree is a fake!” Apparently, she had touched the tree and realized that real trees don’t feel like plastic. She must have also assumed that I had no idea because her text seemed to imply that she was trying to inform me about this “poser” tree.
When I got home, Derek and I talked to Jordan about our reasons for buying a fake tree, but apparently, she was upset with us because we didn’t consult her on this very important decision. *Note: she’s sixteen and as most parents of teenagers know, their consultation and approval is very important on all things to do with them. * Jordan called Brittany to tell her about the “fraudulent” tree and they both decided that they were upset because it wasn’t traditional.
So Derek and I continue to listen to how awful the “poser” tree is from Brittany and Jordan, but to make a long story short: we have bet them both that by the time they are each 30, they will also have a fake tree. We’ll see about this…..
The major change this year was: no kids! Brittany had to work this year, she’s 20, and Jordan spent Christmas with her Dad’s family in Port McNeill. This is the first time that I have had Christmas without my kids EVER and it was weird! Christmas Eve and Christmas morning were so quiet. There were no kids sleeping under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, they do this every year, and we weren’t woken up by an extremely anxious Jordan eager to unwrap her presents. So this year was very different.
Anyway, that was my Christmas:) Now, I’m off to visit my family and have Christmas dinner at Derek’s parent’s house.
I hope Santa was good to you this year and I’m looking forward to kicking your butt again in 2012!
