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Capítulo XXXII- El Primer Día de Diciembre
It was a tradition for Dante and Patience to decorate for the holidays when the month began. Ever since Patience could remember she and her family would decorate for Christmas together on December first. It was one of Patience's favorite holidays other than Halloween.
Patience clicked on the tv in the living room to play Christmas music. Part of the tradition is to decorate the house with soothing and joyful Christmas music playing in the background. Patience turned up the volume and set the remote down to grab her jacket and shoes.
She strolled to her backyard where her dad was in the old oak shed. The lights inside the shed shined through the window, cardboard boxes were neatly stacked on the shelves with a couple of things cluttered in there.
"What colors do you want on the Christmas tree this year?" Dante asked. He set the last box filled with ornaments on the floor.
Patience opened the two boxes, searching for colors that captured her attention. She was in the mood for red and gold. They were two simple colors that could make their green Christmas tree burst into two rich colors with a little bedazzled.
"Red and gold. Do you think we have enough ornaments?"
Dante examined the boxes. "There should. What if we add these?" He took out a plastic box with different small figures. They were glass ornaments of different designs and shapes. From Santa Claus to Mrs. Claus, individual reindeer, stockings, gingerbread people, snowmen, and many more festive things.
"Those are perfect," Patience grinned.
Even though they had picked their colors, together they brought the boxes into the home so they wouldn't have to keep going in and out as often. They even brought in the cardboard boxes for the interior decor.
The duo went out to the front yard. Earlier this morning, Dante and Patience went out to buy their Christmas tree from the farm. The tree was strapped on the car's roof. Dante unclipped the tree and carefully took it down. Patience grabbed one end and Dante grabbed the other, together they carried the tree into the house.
They set it on the stand in the corner of the living room. The straight tree had its needles pointing outward waiting for the ornaments to be hung. But first, they needed the lights.
"Pat, could you hold on to these," Dante handed Patience the end of the white Christmas lights. He untangled the camouflaging green-wired lights and connected them to an outlet to see if they worked. Dante and Patience did the same with three other sets, all three turned on.
Being the tallest, Dante placed the lights around the top of the tree, Patience walked around with him, holding the ends. When the top was done, they switched places. Dante plugged the lights into the wall.
Patience stood at a distance to make sure they evenly spread the lights. The warm white-colored lights hugged the tree top to bottom. She directed Dante where to move the lights and Patience gave Dante a thumbs up.
Together they picked out the ornaments they chose. As usual, Dante decorated the top and Patience the bottom. Patience hooked the hooks on the ornaments, some already had them from the previous years.
Jingle Bell Rock played out the speakers and Patience and Dante sang along. Their feet moved to the rhythm of the song, hanging the ornaments on the tree, careful not to bump into any boxes behind them. If an ornament fell it would be the least of their problem, they had carpet and wore slippers.
After finishing with the ornaments, Patience dug through the box to find the tinsel. However, out of all the different colors they had, none of them matched the gold and red theme. "Add gold and red tinsel to the list?" Patience said.
Dante noted it on the piece of paper. As Patience and Dante decorated their house full of holiday cheer, they pinned things down on a list for Christmas decoration shopping.
Dante and Patience's stockings hung next to the Christmas tree. They've had the same stockings since she was a baby. Patience had a white stocking with glittery snowflakes and her name stitched on the cuff in a soft grey. Dante had a bigger stocking with a Santa Claus printed at the heel and his name stitched on the cuff in Green.
They were supposed to get matching sets, but at the time they shopped a little too late. That day at the store, Reese, Patience's mother, suggested they just get different socks because it didn't really matter, it would have added more color. Dante and Patience had been stuck with the same ones since 1998.
Just below the tree covering the stand was a white Christmas tree skirt. It laid as snow for the clay Christmas Nativity set. Surrounding the hand-painted art were old townhouses to form a small town around the display.
Given that the Valmoridas were Catholics, they didn't place baby Jesus in his crib until the 24th of December, Christmas Eve. Speaking of which, the Valmoridas celebrate on the 24th instead of the 25th.
Dante and Patience liked to get creative with decorating sometimes. Each year, they went to the dollar store to buy anything they could to turn into a beautiful work of art. They had some candy canes, more Santa Clauses, and bells to hang up on the doors, walls, or windows.
Around each window of the house was a set of white Christmas lights. They were visible from the outside, outlining the windows' figure to make the house pop.
The exterior of the house was much difficult to decorate. Dante climbed up the ladder to the roof of their home to attach white Christmas lights on the edge of the roof.
As he did, Patience took out the inflatable Santa and penguin. The two were set on each corner on the front of her house after a bit of struggle, Patience tripped on the cord. The Santa held a blue gift box in its hand meanwhile the penguin had a hat and scarf wrapped around its thick neck waving at the street.
"Patience!" Dante exclaimed.
Patience put her hand over her eyes, glancing up at her rooftop, "Yeah?"
Dante shouted, "Tell me how it looks!"
Patience ran across the street. From the distance, the first set of lights hung off the edge. There was a light-up train at the top of the roof. From setting it up so many times, Dante was able to nail it easily.
"It looks great!"
"Okay, thank you!"
The decorating would have gone a lot faster if it weren't only two people. In the old times, Patience would have stayed inside with her mother to decorate while Dante was outside. They could have parted their tasks but Patience hated decorating for the holidays alone. To her, it meant a lot to spend the holidays with her loved ones.
For the remainder of the day, Dante and Patience decorated their house for Christmas. The outside of their house was lit up and was the brightest out of the block. It was safe to say Dante and Patience liked to do the most for Christmas, especially since she set up the lighted reindeer outside, they were her favorite.
Dante and Patience ended up going to the store to buy more Christmas stuff for the inside of their house. They even bought apple cinnamon candles, well after Patience took a whiff of almost every candle on the shelf.
Dante and Patience ended their day by making Tsokolate Eh. They sat on the couch enjoying the creamy hot chocolate drink in their hands watching television. The luminous Christmas tree was now completed wrapped around red tinsel. The fresh scent of pine mixed with the rich chocolate brought Dante and Patience to ease.
