Martha Stewart....I Need You!

It's just not turning out the way I'd planned. Tonight my family laughed at me when I wrapped two pieces of framed artwork in Christmas paper and placed them back on the mantle. After all, that's what Martha does. She demonstrated on her show just how easy it is to turn objects you already have as part of your decor into holiday decorations. So I did it.

The cookies didn't quite resemble Martha's either. Oh, they tasted good, but they just didn't quite look the part. The handpainted egg white frosting in six different colors just can't be replaced with store-bought icing you squeeze from a tube. And my artist's rendition of stained glass church windowpanes sort of all ran together and look like kindergarten finger painting. Did I mention they taste pretty good?

My packages aren't decorated with actual sprigs of holly from the lush holly bushes outside my window. They're decorated in the wrapping paper I bought at Walmart and topped with a name tag. (And the bushes outside my window aren't even holly. They're old dead choleus plants that should have been pulled up at summer's end!)

How does Martha do it? I'd be happy to pull off even one of her amazing Christmas feats. Right now my house is completely overrun with boxes...packages have arrived, packages are being wrapped, and then there's the stash I keep on hand to mail my eBay sales. There are boxes everywhere! In addition, my husband has been playing with the computers and has left a printer in the middle of the kitchen table, a monitor on the island, and numerous plug-in kinds of thingys everywhere. Between the computer parts and the boxes you'd think we were running a small warehouse here. It doesn't lend itself to the graceful and sophisticated style of Martha Stewart Christmas decorating.

My table for Christmas dinner won't come close to Martha's. I don't own too many dishes or silverware settings that match. And even though I get out my great-grandmother's Friendly Village dishes every year, when combined with the staggering array of drinking glasses and mismatched serving pieces I've acquired over the years, there's just not much there that's Martha-esque.

Maybe Martha will air a special show just for people like me this weekend. You know the type...we're down to the wire, but still determined to pull off a Christmas celebration worthy of a magazine two-page spread. She'll ease us into preparing the moistest turkey with nutty stuffing from the nut trees we just happen to grow out back, and finish off with a sinful dessert flambed in wine we can't possibly pronounce. And she'll make it look so simple we'll really believe we can pull it off.

I aim to try. And when my family laughs at the placecards made from dried fruit and twine or the orange and clove pomanders I stuff in everyone's patchwork silk Christmas stockings, I'll ponder their laughter and probably just throw in the towel....the raised pile Turkish cotton towel, of course---the one that matches the monogrammed soap in the guest bathroom.

Who am I kidding? We don't have a guest bathroom. Besides if we did it would probably be filled with boxes. There must be something Martha would do with all those boxes. And I'm sure it's a very good thing!