Tis' the Season
Nov. 18th, 2007 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
loracsI know Turkey day hasn't even come around, but I am (and have been) in xmas decorating mode for several weeks now. I'm currently at the stage of xmas crap everywhere waiting to be sorted and displayed. This year is a major triage year. It's been a long time since I CAN put everything out, but now I'm even making decisions to let some stuff go: one box for Good Will is already filled.
I still love to see it all, but I'm not sure how many more years I can do this level of decorating. As it is, I've had someone move most of the boxes from storage to the house. And Guy's attendant, Stacy, really helps me out with covering the bookcases.
I wonder if I'll scale back at some point or just stop all decorating cold turkey one year? If I do stop, it will break a tradition of 40 years. I was about 10 years old when I started drawing xmas decorations, coloring them, cutting them out and hanging them on the wall. Somewhere there is a Thanksgiving picture from this time with my decorations already up. I doubt Dad noticed, he worked so much and Mom was very tolerant of my budding obsession.
Even during years of transition, I had a few decorations out. My first year in California, I had just moved into my apartment in late November. This was MY first real xmas tree. My furniture hadn't arrived yet, but I had a tv tray, a folding chair and a xmas tree in my front room. We moved into this house right after Thanksgiving in 1999. Again, I didn't have any front room furniture (it was on order), but we had a real xmas tree!
I was too young to remember when my family had a real tree. My first memories were of a silver tinsel tree with the revolving colored spot light. After that, we had a fake tree because my Mom hated cleaning up the messy needles and my Dad had an extreme fear of fires. Each of our houses were one level, so we could easily jump out of the window - two level houses were unacceptably dangerous in his eyes. The two houses he "designed" had a connecting closet between the two bedrooms. He was always after Mom not to load the floor up with "junk" because that was our escape route. We could get to my parents and they could get to us, if either bedroom door became blocked. While we never actually practiced this, it was talked about enough that there is little doubt in my mind that if I'd ever smelled smoke in the middle of the night, my first instinct would have been to head for the closet.
Enough with the writing, for there is decorating to be done!
I still love to see it all, but I'm not sure how many more years I can do this level of decorating. As it is, I've had someone move most of the boxes from storage to the house. And Guy's attendant, Stacy, really helps me out with covering the bookcases.
I wonder if I'll scale back at some point or just stop all decorating cold turkey one year? If I do stop, it will break a tradition of 40 years. I was about 10 years old when I started drawing xmas decorations, coloring them, cutting them out and hanging them on the wall. Somewhere there is a Thanksgiving picture from this time with my decorations already up. I doubt Dad noticed, he worked so much and Mom was very tolerant of my budding obsession.
Even during years of transition, I had a few decorations out. My first year in California, I had just moved into my apartment in late November. This was MY first real xmas tree. My furniture hadn't arrived yet, but I had a tv tray, a folding chair and a xmas tree in my front room. We moved into this house right after Thanksgiving in 1999. Again, I didn't have any front room furniture (it was on order), but we had a real xmas tree!
I was too young to remember when my family had a real tree. My first memories were of a silver tinsel tree with the revolving colored spot light. After that, we had a fake tree because my Mom hated cleaning up the messy needles and my Dad had an extreme fear of fires. Each of our houses were one level, so we could easily jump out of the window - two level houses were unacceptably dangerous in his eyes. The two houses he "designed" had a connecting closet between the two bedrooms. He was always after Mom not to load the floor up with "junk" because that was our escape route. We could get to my parents and they could get to us, if either bedroom door became blocked. While we never actually practiced this, it was talked about enough that there is little doubt in my mind that if I'd ever smelled smoke in the middle of the night, my first instinct would have been to head for the closet.
Enough with the writing, for there is decorating to be done!
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Date: 2007-11-19 06:21 am (UTC)My Mom also decorated indoors kind of on par with what you do. We didn't do anything outside. We made a lot of our own ornaments, mostly with styrofoam balls, glue and glitter. We did construction paper or popcorn chains. My Mom wrapped the 2 columns between the entry room and the living room with tissue paper and red ribbon to look like candy canes, and decorated the mantle over the fireplace with the Baby Jesus, manger, wisemen scene. The staircase banister was decorated and garland was everywhere. She also decorated the windows inside.
And she baked and decorated cookies, cupcakes, cakes, candy, etc. All of them decorated. We went to my Aunt Ann's on Christmas Eve and between the two of them the Christmas table was magical. Even Harry Potter at Hogwart's didn't have it this good. I'm not really exaggerating. My Mom made Christmas magical, kind of like you do, but with fewer lights and more baking. And she would never, ever use a one-color themed Christmas tree, or anything else. It was all about color, the more the merrier. Actually, maybe not fewer lights. The lights were all on the tree, but the tree was at least 8 ft. tall and very wide, always cedar, never pine, covered with those big bulbs.
My Mother would have LOVED what you do with Christmas. You can hear the desire to see and be when I tell my family what you've done. My siblings, my cousins, it takes them all back to being a child again. It puts the magic, even vicariously through my telling, back into their lives. This time of year it's what they all want to hear about first. It is magic.