Seven hours of deckin' the halls

I should have known by 9:10am yesterday what kind of day I was in for.

That's when I arrived at the church armed with the promised trays of veggies and cheese and a dozen cinnamon buns that I had bribed possible fellow decorators with. Starting time wasn't until 10 but I wanted to make coffee and get the last of the stuff unloaded from my car before that.

The church was locked up tighter than an American airport on September 12th ... Hmmm. Maybe the pastor and secretary don't start until 9:30, I'll go home and have a coffee. Thank God it's only a short drive.

As I sat at home savouring my morning brew, I thought, "I'd better phone the pastor. You never know..."

Turns out he was sick in bed and Wednesday is the secretary's day off.

"We gotta get you a key and the code," was the pastor's response to me. Uh no. I don't think so. Now, I don't mind having a title like "Official Church Decorator" but I don't want responsibility. Keys and codes bring responsibility. Especially when I am the parishioner living second closest to the church building. Who do ya think they're gonna call when keyless codeless people want in the building.

Anyway, I scooted off to the pastor's house to get his key and the alarm codes. It was 10:02 when I arrived back in the parking lot. Obviously all the elves and helpers who planned on helping out with the decorating left at 10:01 thinking decorating day had been cancelled.

Not long after I had everything hauled in, my eventual crew arrived: a 71 year old woman. I know I joked about not wanting 30 different opinions on the decorating crew - I guess I should have been more willing to tolerate any kind of help. Jed also showed up later in the afternoon. And while he did do a number of jobs for me, I felt like I expended as much energy explaining my decisions and convincing him as I did decorating.

I cannot thank my fabulous husband enough for the hours he put in the day before getting all the "ladder jobs" done. He, who doesn't even attend the church and doesn't even care for Christmas decorating - what a good guy.

By 4pm, we'd had enough and we called it quits. While it took a lot longer than I expected, and the mess still needs cleaned up, I'm pretty happy with the results. I had my camera with me, but at the end of the day, I just didn't have the energy to pull it from my purse. Maybe I'll get some tonight after work when I go back to finish up.