A Jump-Start on the Holidays

5753 Main Street North, Sylvania, Ohio, USA
Front porch wreath and big basket of evergreens, tin barn with clock, Loren's altar,
my tree with red bow, angels and snowmen, candles;
back door wreath with bright green ribbon.
Reminds me of the song "Baubles, Bangles and Beads,"
which my dear Mom, Andy, and I sang together
for some program, maybe at church one year.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I’m putting up Christmas decorations and it isn’t even Thanksgiving.  I’m getting a jump on the holidays.  Maybe it’s my Dad and Loren, with their Christmas music already blaring. Frank Sinatra and all the oldies but goodies. Or mom baking cookies and fruitcake.  I'd like to think it’s the ghosts of Christmases past.  

But actually, I had to clean out my closets to make room for storing my window air conditioners, and that meant moving out all the holiday decorations first.  So now the ACs are stored, and the decorations are up.

I started with the new fake tree I bought at the end of last season, on sale.  I’ve never had a fake tree, but downstairs neighbor Judi has one and it seems okay. Small and pretty.  She just brings it out of a box, decorations and all, shakes it up, straightens the branches here and there, and voila! A Christmas tree. I bought pine-scented candles to make up the difference in having the real thing.  I added new decorations to the old traditional ones, glitzy things I got at Bumbles when they had a huge going-out-of-business sale last January. I added bows, bells, and bulbs, greens with reds and burgundy, and of course angels, everywhere.  I have a little holiday altar for Loren, because it’s his birthday soon and he loved (loves?) the season.

I went “greens hunting,” as I put it to Kyle the other day, all around the neighborhood and into the little parks, collecting evergreen branches.  They are now wreaths on the doors and decorations on the front porch and back porch. I got some for Michelle’s flower boxes, too, although they warned me to be discreet about walking around the neighborhood, in my blue coat that everyone recognizes, with large clippers in my lavender-gloved hands. When I came home with a huge bouquet of varied evergreens, Kyle put his hands on his hips, gave me a wry smile, and seemed resigned to his Nana’s acting out!