"It will be a Clean...", I mean, "...Blue Christmas without you!"

Theovis and I are having separate Christmas celebrations this year. This will be very strange. For the past several years we have joined our 2 small families (my mum and dad and his mom) into one which makes the holidays so easy. This year, however, things got complicated. Due to his Nenna's less than perfect health, he has decided (and rightly so) to spend Christmas with his mom, grandparents and brother on Vancouver Island. Why am I not simply going with him? Well, due to my father's less than perfect health, I don't want to miss out on any holiday time with my family. Alas, separate Christmases. Now don't worry, I am not writing to whine about how much Christmas is going to suck because we aren't together. Admittedly, I will miss him a whole bunch for the 3 whole days he is away, but I am really writing to irreverently gloat about how clean my house is going to be while there are no boys in it (our roommate is also away).

I'm sure I am going to lose my best-wife-in-the-universe status by writing this but it is true. The boys are messy! My dad would laugh heartily if he read this because he thinks that I am pretty much the messiest person in the world, but deep down there is a tidy person desperate to get out. I don't spend much time being a clean freak because I hate cleaning and it never lasts anyway, but I have a hard time really relaxing if the place is a sty. So, since I have 12 days off work to relax and I have a couple boy-free days, I spent the morning on a bit of a cleaning spree. I vaccuumed; did laundry; ran the dishwasher; cleaned the cat box; dusted with those Pledge "Grab it Static" cloths (these things are a great invention!); cleaned the grubby hand prints off the mirrored closets in the hallway; put the Nintendo 64 and controllers neatly on the TV stand; sorted through mail, flyers and multiple weeks of local newspapers and put them in the recycle bin; jauntily displayed our Christmas cards around the samurai swords on the mantle and retrieved rogue dishes from throughout the apartment. About all I have left are a few trips down to the recycling/garbage room in the basement.

Don't get me wrong, if I had to choose, I would pick having my untidy sweetie here with me any day over a clean house. But since that is not an option, I am going to take advantage of being able to come home from my parents' place and lie on the couch, reading, watching tv and eating way too much chocolate, while I look around at my tidy apartment and smile.

Happy Holidays!