Holiday Decor 2007

I always decorate for the holidays. It’s my favorite time of year (I’m kind of still working out why, but I don’t seem to be alone in this), and I will never be a person who says it’s too much trouble, too much work, not worth it, etc. Doesn’t matter if people aren’t coming over, I still decorate for me.

Seriously, why wouldn’t I want to spend my December living with with pretty twinkly lights, keepsake ornaments, good food and festive surroundings? Why wouldn’t I want to set aside a special day to drink cocoa, listen to festive jazzy tunes, and make my house more beautiful with greenery and ribbon?  Why wouldn’t I want to make something special I’ll remember fondly in year’s to come?  I hope I’m never so busy I can’t take the time to enjoy things I love.

We’ve (that would be Jeff and I) collected stockings over the years. Eeyore is me, Tigger is Jeff. The fish is for Caper kitty, the bone for Audrey puppy, and the last is one made by my Grandma. I’m still making Callie’s. The lovely oven mitts are my anti-burning collection, since I love holiday cooking but as usual, I burn the crap out of myself when cooking.  Can’t seem to remember that pans out of the oven are hot, for some reason.

I hung snowflakes from the dining room chandelier ’cause I want some real snowflakes falling from the sky. Here - not likely! So much wishful thinking. It’s actually about 80 degrees and raining outside. [Amended statement - Monday it was clear and 40, yesterday rainy and 80, today 40 and rainy.  Sheesh.]

My favorite part of the festivity-ness is the tree (the real tree, smelling lovely) because of the many ornaments I’ve collected over the years. One of the things I’ve always looked forward to getting the new tree ornaments my family has given me over the years. I have an enormous number of ornaments now from all over. I can tell you when and where and from whom I got almost all of them. The one on the right, for example, is from my Aunt Mary and Uncle Reg, and there’s another one to match it around here somewhere.  My grandparents tend to get me ornaments when they’re traveling, like the bear-in-a-kilt from Scotland.

Sometimes the ornaments are handmade. These two are handmade by me when I was little. The left one is the oldest ornament I have, a gingerbread man I made when I was about four, baked from playdough or something. Yes, those are holes in it, it’s so old. It’s falling apart. The Snoopy one on the right I also made - of the shrinky dink variety. Gosh I used to love shrinky dinks.

So that’s some of the festive look around here.  Now, if Callie would stop trying to play frisbee with the ornaments (she’s taken to leaping off the back of the couch at them) we’d be golden.  She already took down the ribbon once, and I didn’t even decorate the bottom of the tree trying to avoid this!  Oh, well - merry merry!