Tubs

Everything in my body and soul rebels at the thought of having to decorate for Christmas next week.

I don’t want to take my gourds off my mantel. I don’t want to store away my pumpkin brulee candles, or my fall door wreath, or the “May Your Pumpkins Always Be Plump” sign in the powder room. I like coming downstairs in the morning and seeing my orange and beige mantel decorations, the pinecone centerpiece on my dining room table, and my scarecrow kitchen hand towels. I’m not done looking at them yet, they still bring me so much joy.

Drat. I hate storing fall away for a whole year, we get so little of it in Jersey as it is.

But the crazy “We might as well get the decorations up now while it’s warm” people are out in full-force, and I have to agree with them. Getting Christmas decorations up and over with is the only way to go. And as many mothers know, especially single mothers, getting your kids to bring down those Christmas decorations out of the attic over Thanksgiving weekend is key to Christmas decorating success.  

Tubs. Freaking tubs. So. Many. Freaking. Tubs.

My boys bring my red and green Christmas tubs down in an organized fashion on Black Friday. I play Christmas music to put them in the spirit, and try to have something delicious bubbling in the crockpot, to make the day as festive as possible. The older they get the busier they are, so finding time when all three are home gets tougher every year. Luckily the Friday after Thanksgiving seems to be ubiquitous in its generosity of time, and if they work quickly, the process barely takes an hour.

For Tub Removal Day, each boy has a role, and who does what switches from year to year. The first boy is the Surveyor. The Surveyor stands in the attic and assesses what tubs need to come down and which ones don’t. The Surveyor has to make sure he doesn’t step through the floor, so the position comes with a high degree of authority and surefootedness. The Surveyor gets to say arrogant things like, “I’m in charge, just do your menial job,” and “Don’t question me, just do as I ask,” and, “Because I said so” without fearing brotherly recrimination. The Surveyor slides the tubs down to the Accepter, who waits at the bottom of the steps.

The Accepter, while being the easiest job of the three, is fraught with danger because very heavy tubs are being slid towards his face. But this is a popular job, because all The Accepter has to do is accept the hand-off from the Surveyor and try not to get his nose broken. As the Surveyor slides the plastic tub down the attic steps toward The Acceptor, The Surveyor might say something along the lines of, “This is a heavy one,” or “Light one here, must be the stockings,” or “Yo, grab this one from the base.” The Acceptor accepts the tubs, says some version of “Got it” with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and hands them off to the third boy, the Runner.

The job of the Runner is the most physically demanding, as he has to take each tub down the stairs and deposit it on the living room floor. The Runner’s annual goal is to bring the tubs down as quickly as possible so that he can run back up the stairs and feign boredom by looking at his phone. The Runner likes to say things like, “I’m back, you guys are so slow,” and “Could we move this along, some of us have lives,” and “What’s next, let’s go, let’s go, let’s gooooooo!” The Runner had for many years been my youngest, as his big brothers convinced him when he was a small child that The Runner role was “the coolest,” and he should do it because he was “the fastest.” Circa his middle-school years he was on to them, and he stopped “running.”

Many years I find it ironic that my oldest son chooses to be The Surveyor, my middle son chooses The Acceptor, and my youngest agrees to be The Runner. It’s almost like the chronological pecking order naturally distributes itself in the actual process.

Once the tubs are down, the responsibility falls to The Organizer, aka Mom, to place all of the  decorations in the annual spot, and then find somewhere to store the tubs. Usually that “somewhere” is the mechanical room, which is where the tubs stay until the first week of January, when the process starts all over again, only this time in reverse.

Just like life.