Just Another Herd Creature

The angst is over (for now).  I’ve decided to decorate for Xmas AND I’ve decided to ask for help.  I’m going to try and get as much done as possible in the next week.  If you are local and want to lend a hand, take a look at the end of this for XMAS 2010 DecoMania details.

If you’ve not seen our house at xmas (btw we live in San Leandro), then I’d better give you a little idea of what’s involved.  First, there’s the prepping; as much shelve space as possible will be cleared of tchotchkes and photos.  Some stuff will be placed on the lower level of bookcases.  Then all the bookcases will be covered with cotton (for that snowy look).  Lights and garland will outline the bookcases.  Garland will outline all doorways. 

Now the real fun starts, moving the boxes from the storage unit in the backyard to the front room.  I think I have at least 25 large, plastic tote boxes of decorations.  I have a hand truck, but there will be lifting involved. Next we unpack and start organizing the decorations.  There are some boxes I have not opened for the last 2 seasons and I hope we can get to them.  I don’t have room for everything, so some items will be repacked and other items will join a box of “give aways”, if you’re here when it goes in and you want it, it’s yours.  The laws of  storage space tells me I can not continue to buy new stuff every year and not run out of room, so some things just gotta go.   But I digress.

Once everything is out and mostly in place, then the boxes will need to be moved back to the storage space.  There are outside decorations, but I’ll just have to see how that goes.

It sounds so simple when I type it out, but believe me this has taken me 6 weeks and all my spare time & energy.  If we can pull it all together, I will plan the Xmas Open House this year.  I haven’t had one since 2007.  The last two years have been a series of health hits on me and mine, but this is NOT a pity party.  This is a celebration of all things bright, shiny and xmas cutesy. 

So that’s the basics.  Here are the times I plan to devote to XMAS 2010 DecoMania.  I have a long weekend because of Veteran’s Day and a furlough day, plus I took a vacation day.  The beginning time is pretty firm (as in I’ll be up and dressed!)  The ending time will vary; when I get too exhausted and/or there are no volunteers.  If you are planning on coming, please let me know your desired time and date (email or phone 510-639-0840). Let me know if you need the address too. Come for as little or as much as you can stand.  It will be work, but it will also be FUN!

Sunday, Nov. 7   12 pm
Thursday, Nov. 11   10 am

Friday, Nov. 12,   10 am

Sunday, Nov. 14   11 am

Monday, Nov. 15   10 am

And to all my local friends who do not have the time, health or inclination to attend XMAS 2010 DecoMania, I completely understand.   

I’ve been an orphan for 10 years.  Today marks a decade since my mother died; ten very long, blink-of-an-eye years. 

I can see her, standing at the kitchen sink with her long, thin, grey hair wound into a little knob, held in place by two bobby pins crossing each other to form an “X”.  Softly, she is singing and yodeling, which I can just barely hear over the running water. 

I can feel the soft and loosening skin hanging from her upper arm. As a small child, I would cling to her big, soft arm and inhale the smell of her, a mix of sweat, cigarette smoke, Joy dish detergent and most often, onions.   As an adult, who only saw her every few years, I took every chance I could to sit next to her and hook my arm around hers.  She smelled the same minus the cigarette smoke. 

On one trip, several years before she died, I video taped my mom telling some family stories - ones I'd heard over and over again.  She loved to tell them.   Mom had a hospice nurse visit her weekly for the last several months of her life.  After the required medical stuff, this woman would sit at the dining room table and mom would "bend her ear" with one story after another.  I will forever be grateful to this woman for listening to her. 

I've never watched the video, maybe this year I will.