Deck the Halls!

Hey everyone! Yesterday was our first day of winter break, and our family got to go to a nearby Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree. I was a little iffy about our choice at first, because the tree seemed a little lumpy and misshapen in spots, but once we had cut it down and brought it home, I realized it wasn't really such a bad little tree. Like Mom said, it had a lot of character. And like Linus said in A Charlie Brown Christmas, it just needed a little love.

We had to wait until this morning to put it up, though, because we got home late yesterday and Mom promised that we could put it up today. After putting down plastic sheets to protect the floor from falling needles, Dad brought it through the side door and settled it in its little tree stand in the living room. He and Mom cleaned up the needles while I brought in the box of ornaments to start decorating.

Zoe was sitting in one of our beanbag chairs, reading a Sports Illustrated magazine with the book she was supposed to be reading for homework lying on the floor with its spine open.

"C'mon Zoe!" I cried as I staggered in with the boxes of ornaments in my arms.

She looked up in surprise and hastily tried to shove the magazine under the beanbag, while picking up Sebastian the Striped Sea Bass with her other hand.

I set the heavy boxes down with a thump! next to the tree.

"What are you waiting for?" I cried. "Christmas! Ornaments! Decorating!"

"Hmm?" she asked as she looked up from the book on her lap, feigning surprise.

"Knock it off, Zoe, I know you haven't been reading that book this whole time."
"Oh yeah?" she challenged. "And how do you know that?"
"The book's upside-down," I said matter-of-factly, turning back to the pile of boxes. I heard her sigh and heave herself up from the beanbag chair, then come over to survey the tree.

"It's cute," she said simply. I nodded as I sat down with the box of lights.

"There's a hundred of them?" I asked incredulously as I pulled the bundle from the box. "My gosh, we're never going to be able to fit all of those on the tree."

"We'll just - coil them up at the bottom or something," was Zoe's solution. I shrugged. We'd figure out something.
I pulled yard after yard of the lights from the box and brought the whole bundle of them over to the tree.

We started winding the wires over the branches until they covered the whole tree.

The extra amount of lights actually worked out - the outlet was all the way around the corner, and we had just enough excess wire to reach it.

Zoe opened the shoebox full of the shiny, colorful baubles, while I claimed the box of fun ornaments.

In my box, there was a pair of cookies, a pair of popcorn boxes, two slices of cake with ice cream dollops on the top, two poptarts, a jingly pumpkin, and two strands of silver stars from last year. Some new additions included two slices of apple pie and two mini Christmas trees, as well as two hamburgers and two peapods that aren't in the picture because they didn't fit in this box.
I held up one of the slices of pie. That was one of my favorites.

I attached a hook, then made my way over to the tree, where I hung it over a sturdy branch.

After all the ornaments had been hung, I found the golden star in its special box and reached over to put on the very top of the tree.

But even though I stood on my tippy-toes, I was still just out of reach of the top! So I dragged the now-empty shoebox over to the base of the tree and stepped up on it.

With the extra height, I was just tall enough to place the star on the very top of the tree and twine its wires securely around the branch.

I stood back and Zoe plunked down in her beanbag to admire the now-almost-completed tree. It fairly sparkled in the lamplight.

"Almost completed?" Zoe groaned. "What's left?"
"Just one more thing," I said, as I disappeared around the corner. I heard her cry of protest as I turned out all the lights, but then a gasp as I plugged in the end of the huge light chain. I came back around the corner to see.

We stood back to admire our tree. I couldn't believe I'd ever had doubts about taking it home. It looked so pretty, all lit up like it was.

Zoe slid her arm around my shoulders in a rare display of sisterly affection.
"We make good tree," she said simply. I had to agree.

Only three more days until Christmas, and only two more doors to be opened on our advent calendar! I'm so excited! Mom has told us that we absolutely can't go into the furnace room off the basement, Zoe's forbidden me from looking in her dresser, and I've told everyone that they just can't look in the hallway closet. I like mysteries like these, don't you? Do you celebrate Christmas? If not, what do you celebrate? If you do, what sort of traditions do you have in your family?

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!

A Key in the Garden: A Tate Mystery (Part One)

Hey everybody! As you might have noticed from the title of the post, you've got another mystery coming up. I figured it was about time we had another one, as it's been over a year since our last. That's not to say that we started out the day intending to be involved in one - because what good mystery is intentional? - it just sort of happened that way. But really, maybe that's not entirely fair, seeing - 

Just start the story, Charlotte.

Oh, that reminds me! We're going to be trying our first joint blog post, so bear with us, this might be a little - 

Charlotte, seriously, just start the story.

- awkward at times, but we're going to try - 

Charlotte!

Yeah, yeah, I know. Here goes!

It was Veteran's Day, so we'd had the whole day off from school, and had of course squandered it like we always did, playing video games and goofing off until a few hours after lunch. That's when Mom came into our room and insisted we get out of our pajamas and go do something, anything, outside. Well, we tried, but I didn't last very long - it was deceptively cold, even to someone who was, like me, clad in a heavy sweater and scarf and fur boots. I headed back in to read a little, but Zoe stayed outside, still stubbornly trying to teach Ginger to fetch.

At around 5:00, Mom told me to call Zoe inside for dinner. The sun was already beginning to set - what had happened to summer?

Well, if you want to get technical. . . 

No, no I don't.

Because right now in science class -

Honestly, Zoe, if this is how all of our joint blog posts are going to go, we might as well just stop right now.

Fine, fine, it's your story.

Yeah, it is.

So, it was already getting dark, because of the changing tilt of the Earth and Daylight Savings and all that -

It's not "all that", Charlotte, it's actually kind of -

Maybe we should just forget this.

I couldn't agree more.

So, anyway, it was already getting dark when I opened the sliding door to fetch Zoe from the porch.

"Zoe!" I called. She didn't respond. I tried again but she still didn't say anything. I really didn't want to go out into the cold again, but it looked like I didn't have a choice. I slipped on my boots and hurried out into our cold and gradually darkening backyard.
"Zoe, Mom says it's time for dinner," I told her as I walked in her direction.

"Ok," she said sharply, watching as Ginger chased the stick she had just lobbed across the porch.

I looked at her questioningly, and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," she said, shaking her shoulder from under my grasp and turning away from me.

"What is going on with you today?"
"I'm fine."
"Really? Because you don't seem -"
"I'm fine."
"Ok, well," I said, rather miffed. "It's time for dinner."
"I know," she nearly growled at me. Conceding that she really didn't want to be questioned, I stopped talking and let her walk in the front door ahead of me.

Just as I was about to follow, a furry golden head popped up at the edge of the porch with a bark.

"Ginger?" I asked in surprise. I thought she had gone inside. "What are you doing there?"

She bounded up to me and offered me her nose. At first, I thought she just wanted me to pet her, but then I realized she had something in her mouth. I reached down to take it.

When I realized what it was, I immediately called back Zoe, who was about to open the sliding door and go inside, to come back and see.
"What?" She whined, coming back in my direction.
"Look," I told her, holding out the glinting sliver object.

"Is that a -" Zoe looked up at me in confusion.
"A key?" I finished. "Yeah, I think so." I looked down at Ginger, still propped up on her haunches, looking very pleased with herself. "What do you say, girl? Will you show us where you found this?" With a joyful bark, she leaped off the porch and headed towards my mom's forsythia garden.

We found her standing next to a pile of freshly-dug earth.
"Mom is not going to be happy," I remarked. Zoe rolled her eyes.
"Who cares?"

After packing the dirt back into the hole and spearing a stick into the nearby ground to mark the place, we headed up to our room. Zoe immediately plunked down on the couch to watch TV, pointedly ignoring me.

Just to make sure that we didn't lose the key, I decided I would string it on a piece of thread for safekeeping. I took some scissors and a spool of black thread from my desk drawer and sat down on the floor at Zoe's feet to get to work.
First I cut a piece of thread long enough to fit around one of our necks, with some extra at the ends to use for tying. I cut a little more than I needed to, because it's always best to be stuck with too much rather than too little.

I strung the key onto the thread and stretched it out between my hands so I could figure out how long I wanted the necklace to be. Long enough to fit over my head, but not so long that it would hang too far down my front.

I turned around to Zoe to consult, but while she glanced down at it for a moment, she quickly shrugged and turned back to look at the TV. I resolved that as soon as I finished stringing the key, I would figure out what was going on with her.

Tying the ends securely, I set it down on the couch and set to putting away my materials. The scissors and spool went into my desk drawer, and the excess thread that I had cut off the ends went into the trash can. I went back and picked up the necklace, then tucked it carefully into my bedside table drawer.

Then, having stalled for as long as I could, I took a deep breath to steel my nerves and plunked down on the couch next to Zoe, made sure the bedroom door was closed, and reached out the remote to turn off the TV.
"So, what's going on?" She sighed but didn't respond.

"Zoe?" She shrugged, then reached over the armrest to fetch something sitting on the floor. I thought at last she was about to actually tell me something, but as it turned out - 
"Want some chips?" she asked, holding out a bag of Lays.

"No, I don't want some chips," I said, exasperated, as I pushed away the bag. "I want to know what's going on with you. Why won't you tell me?"
"It's embarrassing," she mumbled. That got my attention. Nothing embarrassed Zoe. A contradiction in terms.
"What is it?" I asked, now rather warily.
"Well," she sighed, looked down at her hands, and stalled for a few more seconds. At last, she continued, "there's this guy -" but didn't get any farther than that. She was cut off by my shrieks.
"What?!? All right, all right, tell me more! Who is it? Who is it? Who likes who? Did he ask you out? Did you ask him?"
"Charlotte, shut up."
"Ok, ok, but it's just so exciting!" She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "So why is that so embarrassing?"
"Well, first of all, I do not like him, so don't get any ideas in your head," she warned. "It's just, well, Erica Crane decided yesterday that I did and she got up during lunch and shouted it out to everyone. Everyone! All my teammates and friends and even everyone that I don't know. And now everybody believes her and thinks that I like him and is teasing me like crazy and -" she stopped to take a breath. "And the worst part is that now he's avoiding me like the plague."
"I thought you said you didn't like him," I said, smirking.
"I don't! But he's the center forward for our travel basketball team and he avoids me so much that everyone else is following his example and everyone at school is laughing at me and - Ugh!" she cried. "Can you see why I'm upset?"
I could, I really could. But as what she was saying began to sink in, I had to admit to myself that there wasn't a thing I could do to help her. I didn't even know how to comfort her. This was really a job for Mom, but I couldn't tell her without betraying Zoe's secret. What could I do?
And with all this excitement, I had nearly forgotten about the key. Where had it come from, and why in the world was it buried in our garden? With too many mysteries in one day for even Alexandria Beauregard's mind, I decided I'd just go to sleep. Maybe when I woke up in the morning, everything would make more sense.

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!

Happy (very belated) Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone! Happy, um, well, 10 days after Thanksgiving! Sorry I didn't post on the actual day - we were too busy watching football and cooking and eating and doing all those classic, stereotypical Thanksgiving things to do much of anything else.

I turned on the TV as soon as I got up to watch the Macy's Parade. I liked watching the marching bands the best. I think I'd like to be in our school's marching band someday, if I ever get good enough. Maybe play the piccolo! That would be so much fun.

After the parade was over, the National Dog Show came on. I had planned to start my homework after the parade was over, but who can work on a holiday? Ginger came over after a while to watch with me. She liked the golden retriever the best - of course she would - but I think the little yellow Chow Chow was my favorite - all that fluffy fur looked so soft! Mom made us turn it off after a while, saying I'd already watched way too much for one morning, and enlisted me to help her put the turkey in the oven.

After I helped her with the cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing, baked potatoes, salad, and dinner rolls, she let me go. She had plenty of help from the cousins and aunts and uncles that were beginning to swarm the kitchen as they arrived, carload by carload. Of course, there wasn't nearly enough time for me to get very far into my homework, so in an act of total boredom and desperation, I decided to plunk down on the sofa in our room with Zoe and watch a little football. And escape the crazy mess of cousins that waited for us downstairs.

Our dining room table was way too small to hold all the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents that had showed up, so it was every man for himself - the lucky ones snagged places at the table, while others were stuck eating at the counter or in chairs along the wall. Zoe and I, at least, got a table to ourselves, even though it was off in a far corner of the dining room. Mom had set it up really nicely, though, so it didn't turn out to be that bad after all.

Mom started to light all the candles stuck into haphazard holders all around the room as everyone loaded up their plates and found places to sit. Dad stood up and said grace as soon as she was finished, then turned out the lights.
The room looked so pretty with the candles burning on all the tables and counters.

 

I'm so sorry I posted so late! Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? What do you do for the holiday? Do you get together with friends and all your extended family, or do you just have a small celebration at home? It can be really fun to get together with all our cousins and aunts and uncles, but sometimes I wish we were the latter; all the people in the house can get pretty overwhelming!
I'm so excited for Christmas this year! I already have some ideas for presents for Zoe and my parents, and my mom's been very secretive this weekend. Do you celebrate Christmas? Are you looking forward to the holiday season?

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!