Well, I did it. I lit the Christmas fire within this weekend and am now enjoying the season. All it took was some baking, a good deed, chatting with a friend, and some decorations. The tree is up and decorated, room decorations are scattered about, and the outside decorating is complete. It looks festive, but HGTV isn’t going to be filming my house any time in the near future.
Most of my decorations are quite old or hand made by a child, or improvised by me. We use a pre-lit artificial tree, but when we put it together, the top third didn’t light! We jiggled, we shook, we twisted and tested, but the lights wouldn’t work. What to do? I drove to the pharmacy and purchased some lights and voila! Lights on the top third! When decorating the tree each ornament brings a memory either from my childhood, early in our marriage, or of the girls’ childhood. Our little bay window is graced with a glass vase I filled with potpourri and tied a red ribbon and green jingle bell around the neck, and on either side of it are the tinsel-y red star sprays that were balloon weights at Anna’s college graduation party. The piano is adorned with an assortment of small Christmas toys, some plastic, some wood, and the green sparkly gift bag balloon weight from Hillary’s birthday balloons. The wooden water pump replica lamp that one of my clever brothers made recently for my husband is festooned with a Christmas necklace made from painted stones around the shade and a tiny white seal wearing red earmuffs atop the trough. The front of the house is lit with 600 tiny lights wound around the bushes and strung along the deck rail and outlining the door. On the door is a candy cane made of gold, red and green sparkly jingle bells given to me by a co-worker a few years ago around the top of which I’ve tied a piece of red tartan ribbon that likely came off a gift at some point in time. A wreath made many years ago by my husband’s youngest sister is attached to the front of the deck flanked by plastic candy canes from the dollar store. Finally, in the corner of the deck stands a 3 foot tall wooden Rudolph Reindeer guarding the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They’re not large, maybe 18 inches high, and the baby is attached to the little manger with a red twisty tie. I don’t know how old they are, but my parents were getting rid of them so we took them when we first bought our house. When Anna was about 2 years old she used to take the baby Jesus for walks around the yard in her toy shopping cart. We’ve thought about replacing them over the years, yet we don’t. They’ve become for me a link to the past with their faded chipped paint and non working lights.
So, that’s how I lit the fire of Christmas spirit within me. Now, time for cookies!
2 comments:
I love that your Christmas decorations tell the story of you and your family. Most of mine are older, too, and have been handed down from my mother and her mother. They might not be so shiny and modern but they're comforting all the same! Now pass the cookies... :)
Ah, thank you Elizabeth! I love being surrounded by the things that help tell the story of our lives, from the ornament my hubby made in Sunday school as a child to the Lenox ornament I had to purchase after dropping and breaking it in the store the first year we were married (we super glued it back together and no one knows it was broken) to the bagpiper nutcracker my daughter bought my hubby last year. Each one could be a post of their own.
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