To Tree or Not to Tree - Update

This past January I reflected on not having put up a Christmas tree for the past 10 years,  ( To Tree or Not to Tree ) so I thought I should begin the holiday season with a happy update.

We have a tree!

It's a small one, but it's lovely and full and vintage and smells sooooo good!  It takes up gallons of water and sheds needles and tinsel every time I come near it so it's perfect. Wait - TINSEL?  Oh yes, I did the tinsel thing. I bought it as a joke - the packages were $1 - but when I finished trimming the tree in those lovely vintage 40's and 50's ornaments I thought, "What the hell - try a little!"  Well, a little became a little more and while it does not look like the tinsel fairy threw up on the tree, it is tinseled and it looks wonderful.   Normally I loathe the stuff but for some unknown reason this year it just seemed... right.

When I come downstairs in the morning and saunter into the family room with my coffee and my iPad,  I smell the tree's fragrance and I smile. I sip coffee and unlock the Angry Birds Seasons episode of the day and look at my tree and feel peaceful. Evenings are good, too, with the teeny blue tree lights that make the silver tinsel look blueish. It soothes me to see that icy blue in winter because it brings back a favorite childhood memory.

While driving home from a visit to Grandpa and Grandma Major, the sub-zero cold of a Nebraska night made for a spectacular, star filled sky. The clear, dark sky made the white snowy fields turn a kind of blueish tint.  It was like a fairyland, and to a young girl at Christmas it was magical. Everyone else would fall asleep, Dad would be driving at breakneck speed (it was legal then) and I would ask him to keep making the headlights change from dim to bright - and he could do it with no hands!  I though he was a genius - little did I know the button to toggle  the bright headlights was on the floor by the brake. I thought he was magic. The night landscape was enchanting. Such a simple thing, but I have remembered it - vividly - my entire life.

Many, many years later I was driving around Gloucester looking at Christmas lights, feeling homesick and miserable. Then I saw it - a big house with a massive front lawn lit entirely by....blue lights.  The snowy front lawn had that same blueish tint. I pulled over, got out of my car and snuck around the hedge and just stared at the whole scene. (It was very late, no one was up.)  I got a little weepy.  Happy weepy. I felt better.  I got back in my car and went home. *

I'm one of the fortunate few who aren't driven to distraction by the holiday shopping  and the stress of holiday cooking.  I love to cook - so does my husband - and we really have limited resources so gift buying is at a bare minimum.  It's very liberating to take such control over the holiday madness. It is a gift unto itself. Light those Advent candles and enjoy every ritual of the season.  I truly am, for the first time in many years.

*Happy Update #2 - I later met the owner of that house and he has since become one of my dearest friends. He still puts up the blue lights but now I enjoy them with a cocktail in my hand beside a roaring fire - he is also a kindred, pyromaniac soul.  Every year, every time - it's magical.

Timely Seasonal Decking

This morning I was in the basement scouring through cobwebs and boxes for some Christmas tree lights for use at the store. We're setting up a little half-tree and planning the Christmas merchandising of ornaments. Now before you start whining about "Christmas aaaaallllreaaaadddyy?" I have one thing to say: shut up.  It's eight weeks away and frankly it's about time you all learned how retail works.

There is a certain amount of square footage in stores designated as "seasonal". There is nothing else to go in that spot (otherwise it would be already somewhere else in the store.) Consequently, some stores put out their seasonal merchandise pre-seasonally because otherwise it would be a big empty space where dust, dead bugs and live spiders collect.  Want to see that when you are shopping? Probably not. (It also makes the store look like it is going out of business when it is not.) Many stores have no space to store freight so as it comes in it goes right out on the shelves.  It doesn't make sense to wait and put out the winter coats on December first when the snow flies early in November - they go out in September when people are thinking and planning ahead.  Please note:  You are not at any point in your life forced to look at or purchase anything in the seasonal section so walk on by and get to whatever it is you need. ( BTW, if you shop to kill time, you need a life. )

Back to the tree lights.

While rummaging around in the basement I saw lots of lovely things I used to put up for Christmas.  I remembered my "To Tree or Not to Tree" dilemma and made a decision:  I'm going to start decking.  Not immediately - I have a home-grown pumpkin and gourds on my mantle and I like that.  We haven't had a hard frost or a warm fire yet, so I'm not completely off the reservation.  However, I am planning on spending some time in the basement this week, sorting it all out and planning what will go where.  I'm going to put it up and ENJOY looking at it all through November and December. I'm going to decorate the dining room, the family room, our bedroom and the kitchen.  I have all of these beautiful things that make me happy to look at - what purpose do they serve in boxes downstairs? Some of them have been down there in the dark so long I have forgotten about them. (Hey, new stuff!) Thanksgiving,  my favorite holiday, falls in the middle of it all and gives me a perfect opportunity to stop and inventory the past year and count the many blessings, people and gifts in my life.

Today is our 24th wedding anniversary but Joe is at a City Council meeting tonight so there won't be moonlight and roses and that is ok.  Tomorrow night we're planning to get Chinese food & crack open a very good bottle of champagne  and watch our wedding video.  We haven't watched it in about 20 years - at first it was old hat, but eventually we stopped watching because as we lost family members and other loved ones we just couldn't bear to look at them without weeping.

Too often I plod through the days and weeks and seasons and think about "next year, next time."  It feels like it's time now.  I may be dissolved in tears through much of the wedding video but we both want to look back and remember the day - and laugh at the bad 80's hair and shoulder pads.  I will probably get weepy unfolding the Christmas table runner Mom made but I want it out and on display - it is gorgeous.

It is time.