Put up the tree before my spirit falls again. Fill up the stocking, I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now! For we need a little Christmas right this very minute, candles in the window, carols at the spinet....
I may not have mentioned that I. love. Christmas. I admit that there were some years in my 20's when Santa quit coming and the quantity of my gifts drastically reduced and I was asking for housewares and linens and not fun things like gadgets and Barbies. Then small children re-entered my holiday season and lifted my Christmas spirit, which was already obnoxious, to a whole 'nother level.
My children are struggling to find their Christmas spirit. It's a tough year. We're making the best of it.
Confession: when I met the realtor to look at this house for the first time, I envisioned its Christmas regalia. It has a bannister that begs to be draped with garland finery. Sadly, I spent so much money moving into the damn thing that I have a very small Christmas decorating budget this year. I decided to start with the door. I love wreaths. Before my time in this house is over, ever room in this bitch is going to have a Christmas wreath specifically designed for it. My mother did it. Still does. Some traditions deserve to survive the generations.
I was going to do multiple wreaths and garland and lights around the door. Then I realized that I live in a cul de sac. No one "happens" to be driving by my house, and we don't even use the front door. I chose this year to make a substantial investment in a Statement Wreath. This is a wreath within a wreath with glitter and sparkles and ornaments and sticks and maybe some pinecones. You have to make a coordinated effort not to dodge it with the left side of your body to not run into it when you walk in the door. Me loves it. Please note that sad little doggy in the window wondering why his mommy is standing in the street.
I was also hugely motivated by this mantle. I've wanted a mantle for oh-so-long. This is garland with red and silver ornaments stuck in it (inspired by Pottery Barn and constructed by moi) with silver glitter bubble lights (another Wilson childhood tradition) and red glitter bows.
Corey HATES glitter. HATES it. But he left me here to do all the cleaning and cooking and fixing and hugging and kissing and decorating and shopping and wrapping so he can live with the glitter and LOVE IT.
Arkansas Emily got these lighted gift boxes in her house and I coveted them with my whole heart, as I have copied many items she's acquired during the course of our friendship. My obsession with blue china monkeys is entirely her fault. I recently scored some blue china dog bookends just like the ones she has in her kitchen. Boo-yah. So I went and got myself some lighted gift boxes (glittered) when I found some on sale. On the table is a wreath (glittered) with a curved hurricane and a battery-operated candle with red and green (glittered) twigs in it.
Corey and I dated from 1995 to 2000. That first Christmas in 2000 I was living alone in my great apartment on Kenmore Avenue and I put these big C-9 bulbs around all my windows. I would sit in my rocking chair, listen to "Please Come Home for Christmas," drink hot chocolate, stare at my lights and cry. They've been in every window of every apartment I've ever inhabited. I insist on keeping these lights as part of my Christmas decorating. The argument is that the boys (maybe just Landen) love them. So they're up in the sunroom. Please excuse The Signs That People Live Here, aka my sister's shit all over the room.
My mother started a Santa Claus collection for me. These are two of them. I only have four. I have discovered, at 30 years old, the Macro feature on my camera.
Sunday night, the three of us hauled over to the Johnsons to make gingerbread houses. I have never made a gingerbread house. My poor mother did not encourage crafts growing up. We had a tendency to make a mess and she did not encourage us to or provide us with the resources required for activities that would likely make A Big Mess for her to clean up. I once removed the finish on our formal dining room table with nail polish remover giving my young self a manicure.
We went over there so that I could make a gingerbread house for the first time in my life and the boys could play with Jed and Wyly.
This is Landen's house, which he abandoned after the roof was done and Amelia gave him a door and a window.
This is mine. I enjoyed this so much. I even made a cobblestone path. We will be doing this every year. Except Jake, who wanted no part in gingerbread house decorating. Too old or his aversion to icing? He didn't specify.
Growing up, we always had a fake tree. I loathe the process of unflattening each individual branch to make it look like a tree. In high school, Cydney and I decided that once I could drive us over to the Lowe's to get a real tree, we would have a real tree. There were some grand misadventures in the years that we did this. My mother hated it. Once in protest, she didn't water it and when we came home from DC and college respectively, it was brown and dry and dead. We bought a new fake tree after that.
While I love the look and smell of a real tree, I loathe putting lights on the motherf**ker. And then after a couple days, the bastard started drooping with the weight of my hundred-or-so ornaments. I had to rearrange some things and add some large-scale items (balls and poinsettias) to keep the shape. I love my tree. I'm paranoid that it's not going to make it through the month, though.
Putting a tree in the corner of the room is the lazy person's answer to looking like a lot of effort went into something. It wouldn't fit in front of the window with the layout of our room, which was fine by me, because then I didn't have to decorate all sides of it. The back is blank.
This has nothing to do with Christmas, but it's from this last weekend and I wanted to share it. I was not invited to the He-Man Woman Haters Club slumber party. Boys only.
And yes, they are sleeping on hot pink sheets. I protest my exclusion.
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