Since we’re not traveling anywhere for Christmas, this year we can put up decorations and not have it seem like a waste of time because we won’t be around to enjoy them.

We also bought a full size tree, so the mini tree has been relegated to the Lovecraftian Horror Dining Room. It was initially called the Eldritch Tree, but I’ve taken to calling it the “My Intellectual Property” tree.

In the living room, we’ve got more twinkle lights than a college dorm room and a barn wedding combined. Instead of topping our tree with a traditional (boring) angel, we went for a dinosaur.

Hark! A bright star in the east! …or a meteor come to destroy life as you know it, dino. One or the other.

There are a few schools of thought when it comes to tree decoration. One is to build ornament collections slowly over the years, amassing ones that are particularly cool or meaningful. Another is to have a tree that fits a strict theme. Still another is to buy as much crap as you can, as quickly as possible. My family always had two trees–one in the family room where the crappy children’s ornaments were hung, and a Victorian themed one in the living room that no one other than my mother was allowed to touch. (The whole room was pretty hands-off in general: white couch, stiff furniture, delicate antiques, a piano that I was supposed to play but never felt like playing until late night when no one else wanted me to play…the only time anyone ever really spent any time in that room at all was at Christmas when we exchanged family gifts and were cautioned to stay as far away from the tree as possible. Gifts from Santa arrived under the children’s tree so my mom wouldn’t have to worry about my brother shattering any glass angels in his present-induced frenzy.) I’ve got my Cthulhu themed tree, and I was hoping with the large tree to build up ornaments over time, but Jason’s mom clearly subscribes to the third method as a huge bag of ornaments I never would’ve chosen showed up on our doorstep last week. In an act of passive aggression (I’m a true Pacific Northwesterner now!), I altered one to be more us:

^{True story!}

For the season, our T-Rex is known as “Santa Jaws”. We’ve got kind of a festive dino thing going on this year.

Actually, scratch that: we’ve got a festive reptile thing going on this year. Introducing Gibralter:

I saw him at an awesome Seattle shop, The Belfry, and when I saw his joyful smile, I knew I couldn’t leave him behind. So many taxidermied animals look blank or sad…but not Gibralter! His constant upbeat attitude is an inspiration to us all. “Did you just fart? GREAT!” “Oh boy, I can’t wait to handle raw chicken!” “Thank you so much for coming to my door and waking me up to share your faith with me!” “When you won’t swallow your pill and I have to wrestle you like an alligator, force open your jaws, and shove it down your throat….that’s my FAVORITE!” and my personal favorite “This meal is wonderful and I have no complaints about it whatsoever!” when in reality it could probably be used to spackle a fist-size hole and tastes that way, too.

In the spirit of Gibralter, Merry Cthulhumas, and in his path of destruction, may you be eaten first.

Before I left Wisconsin, my grandparents basically had me lay a claim on anything I wanted in the house “before we die and your awful Aunt Julie comes in here and takes everything, you know how she is.”

Yes, yes I do know that the second they die she’ll have the house stripped of everything of value, razed, and sold before their bodies are even cold. It still doesn’t mitigate the awkwardness of walking through someone else’s life to pick out the things that I like–the 1970s zodiac barometer, the ridiculously heavy statue that it takes two people tag-teaming to lift, the china even though I’m not sure it’s a pattern I’d choose for myself but because grandma is so anxious for me to have it–because it acknowledges death in a way that I’m completely and utterly uncomfortable with.

Grandpa, bless his heart, tried to mitigate this awkwardness by pressing some metal turtles into my hands. “There’s a boy and a girl. Want to know how to tell them apart? Turn them over.”

I’d seen these sitting on the bookshelf near the Encyclopedia Britannica for YEARS and never suspected a thing. Yes, I brought them home. Apparently dick jokes are not just my stock and trade, they’re my legacy.