Holiday Decorating

I’m a big fan of holiday decorating.  I love to spend the day after thanksgiving just holiday-ifying my whole house. There are garlands and vases full of ornaments.  The stockings are hung by the chimney with care.  There is a small collection of nutcrackers and a tree just for cat ornaments. There is a wire wreath just waiting for everyone’s Christmas cards.

And there is the flamingo tree, the best Christmas tree of all.  Oh, the flamingo tree is so beautiful, a white tinsel tree with only pink flamingo ornaments.  Last year I sewed a flamingo Christmas tree skirt for her, it’s reversible.  All the rest of my holiday décor is red and green, but the flamingo tree stands alone, a beautiful pink and white treasure.

A few years ago, my mom sent me a ladder for my birthday.  It is one of those great convertible ladders that goes from step-ladder mode to big-tall mode.  She was sick of listening to me complain about how hard it was to put up my Halloween and Christmas decorations and decided to provide me with the tool to solve my decorating woes.  And it worked!  Ever since I got that ladder, Mr. Man has put up the Christmas lights on our little bungalow every year.

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Our neighbors next door on both sides and across the street go with the old-school, large, multi-colored bulbs.  We go with warm white icicle lights.  It’s a nice contrast.

When Mr. Man put up our lights after Thanksgiving, it was a 75+ degree day.  We decided that it was nice that he put up the Christmas lights so that we would know that it was winter, otherwise, we might not have noticed.

Inside is another story. Because we have these two wonderful treasures living here named Anabel and Sally.  And I am very confident that anything that I put out would be interpreted to be new cat toys.  The fireplace is still filled with boxes so that they can’t get in there (they still are trying), I don’t even know what I think will happen if I try to hang the stockings.  I managed to sneak in my meager collection of nutcrackers and the Christmas card wreath but that is pretty much it.  This year my indoor holiday decorations are on a break.

Even though I miss my flamingo tree, I would be so sad to be cleaning up the aftermath of a kitten attack on it.  Fortunately, I have many photos from last year so that we can all enjoy it virtually.

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As much as I like to have my holiday decorations up right away after Thanksgiving, I want everything packed up and put away before the new year.  So, the upside to this indoor decorating minimalism is that my New Year’s Eve cleaning binge is going to be much simpler this year.

I will be taking the next few weeks off and will be back on January 7^th.  I will look forward to catching up with you in 2019!