Decorating for Christmas

I hear so many people saying right after Thanksgiving “Why are people decorating so early for Christmas?” Now that I am getting older, I begin to understand why. When you reach 50, it seems like Christmas starts coming every three months because time is passing so fast. It’s almost like if we don’t catch it when it comes by, we will miss it all together.

I have always loved Christmas. I love the color. I love the ceremony. I love the festivities I love  the celebration. I never understood the people who were too busy to savor it. I do understand how working parents are stressed. I remember the days of hunting that one certain most popular of the season toy. That was when I wished there really was a Santa Claus so he could do all the looking for the Cabbage Patch doll. 

Now that the children are grown and gone, I enjoy the season more. I still decorate like there are toddlers all over the place. I didn’t realize what a repertoire of decorations I had accumulated over the years until I went into the attic and started looking for them. I found things I had forgotten about and things I swear, I never saw before.

I went to a big warehouse sale this year and got carried away with the bargains. I got things I still have to figure out where to use. Some of them I just passed on to others in hopes that they could figure out where to put them. I got 2 glitter covered twig wreaths that were marked $70 retail for $5 each. I had a hard time fitting them into my red, green and gold color scheme, but I finally figured out how to do it. I added a small glazed fruit and greens swag to the top half of them and tied it with the ribbons that made them match with everything else (which I also got at the sale).

I am not a hanger of outdoor lights. I am pretty clumsy with a ladder and can’t risk ruining my holiday with a sprained ankle or worse. I just festoon the door and its surroundings. I use lots of ribbons and color in my swage. The swags around the door are not as elaborate as last year, because it was too heavy and kept falling on my guests as they entered. That is not a good way to say “good will to men”.
I am a true southerner in that I like sparkle and slightly gaudy. Rural Southwest Alabama is in the heart of Dixie, and we keep Dixie in our hearts. We know we are different from the rest of the nation because we like more glamour and noise in our Christmas. There is nothing puritanical about our decorating = our politics maybe, but not our decorations. We are the colorful birds of plumage in our Christmas sweaters and our holiday decorations. As for myself, I love a glittery mantle. Since all my chimneys were knocked down when they finished the second story of my house, none of the mantles are functional. Therefore, I don’t have to worry about catching the house on fire from the greenery on the mantles. I don’t use real greenery, anyway, because I leave it up so long. It would be dead as a doornail by New Years.

I always leave my decorations up until January 6th. Somewhere in my ancestry there were Anglicans who celebrated Epiphany and early settlers who came down the Federal Road who called it “Old Christmas”. There must have been some Druids way up the line, too, because I am crazy about greenery. I do have some that is read, because nowhere else can you get that smell, but from real cedar? I left two bowls on the dining room mantle to be filled with holly and cedar. They’ll have to be fresh when company’s coming. I plan to have lots of company this holiday season. But I want it in small groups so we can sit and catch up on our visiting. I don’t plan to have a soirée’ that keeps me hopping too much to have fun at my own party! I consider (like the rest of the South) where 3 or more or gathered – it’s a party.