December 01st, 2025

Happy December 1st Ya'll!  Thanksgiving, as wonderful as it was (and it  was!!) is over and now the official countdown to Christmas Begins!  Woohoo and Yikes!

Time is ticking by too fast, too fast! SLOW DOWN! Yes, I know, I could have started earlier, planned better and so forth.  I know people who have long had their Christmas shopping done, wrapped and waiting for the big day. Whoa!  Those sorts of people seriously impress me!  Hats off!!

It's kind of funny because normally I am exceptionally well organized and have everything planned and I'm always on time if not ahead of time with every other dang thing in my entire life.  Just not Christmas.  There's just something about this HollyJolly time of year and all of it's many layers, that I just cannot CANNOT get into until it's officially the Holiday Season and I am feeling that unmistakable Christmas Spirit.   Clearly a personality defect oh my part.

In an effort to at least attempt to, if not keep up then at least not fall too far behind, I did finish decorating the house over the weekend.  Tim found and hauled out the bins labeled "Christmas" for me from the utility room and just so you know, there are too many of them.   I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, Chrismas decor-wise, other than the tree which is already up (last weekend) but I assumed that once I tossed a few bits of holiday magic here and there, I would become a bit more Christmas Enthused.

As I sorted through the bits of this'n'that, the one decision I immediately made was that I didn't want to do the same things I did every year.  That's too easy.  This year I wanted to shake things up a bit, do something a little different. Step One was getting it all out of the bins, unwrapped and spread out so I could see what I actually had. You'd think I would remember, wouldn't you?  You would be wrong.

Over the years we have gained and lost innumerable bits of Christmas Decor- most of it gifts.  I don't use all of it every year for one thing, we only see it once a year and of course things get broken and thrown away.  By way of example, at one time I had an enormous snowman collection of all shapes and sizes. They were adorable. But we had a very large house then and therefore room to display it.   Most of it was sold in our huge moving yard sale before we came here, so it's kind of a surprise to me every year that I have any of it left.
​
Then there were the two "under construction" years where we couldn't even put up a Christmas Tree so we didn't open those bins at all.  It's easy to forget small details when you haven't given bin contents a second thought in two full years!  That's 24 months, which is also 104 weeks or  730 days!  That's a long time to remember something. I often cannot remember what I had for breakfast!  Did I remember to have breakfast?

For the past two Christmas's we were very very VERY careful about what we put out as decorations, up to and including what went on the tree, due to playful, curious and daredevil kitties.  It was a wise decision because as you may or may not remember, they literally killed the first Christmas tree with their enthusiasm and energy.

This year, however, they've been exceptionally good.  I've only had to pick up a few ornaments a couple of times and none of them were broken, just down.  Not Bad At All!  Our Baby Kitties are growing up :) They still love the tree, especially sleeping underneath of it, of course.  The rest of the decorations, they do sniff at from time to time, but otherwise, they've agreed to live and let live.  Whew!

Sooo anyway, there I am looking at all of our Christmas decor Stuff with zero ideas in my little pumkin head. So I just jumped in and without giving it too much (or sometimes any) thought, I just started placing things, thither and yon.  Of course before the new stuff is put out, the usual stuff has to be put............somewhere.  Sometimes in the bin the new stuff just came out of, other times it just finds a new spot. (Sometimes the new spot becomes it's new permanent place)  Usually it also involves at least a small swipe with a tea towels to get rid of fur and dust.   It's a process people!

Tim had to help with some of it because I couldn't reach.  It doesn't feel like a GREAT idea to be climbing ladders in a "boot".  But he's a good guy and entered into the spirit of the project with no complaints.  I knew I was done when I ran out of horizontal surfaces to put stuff on.  Ok that's not entirely true. There were still horizontal surfaces around but putting Christmas Decor on those surfaces would be in the way of navigating normal life and no matter what the holiday, we still gotta manage daily life.  So nothing on bed side tables or the kitchen counters because there's enough crap on those things already. Necessary crap but still.

Anything that didn't make the cut, was put back into the bins with no remorse.  Doesn't mean I don't also love those pieces, it just means, that this year, they are on sabbatical.  Tim returned the bins to wherever they are stashed in the utility room and now the house looks just tacky enough to suit me.  I've always adhered to "Too Much is Just Enough" when it comes to Christmas Decor.  I guess that's where we sit, firmly at "Too Much" but not "Over the Top".  That's my Christmas Decor comfort zone.

My biggest and most favourite surprise in the Christmas Bins was a gift that I had received several years ago but I couldn't use it until now (see "under construction" and baby kitties for reference as to the why of it)  It's a 3-D Paper Tree complete with decorations and it's adorable! So Happy I was able to use it at long last.

As to whether or not it's getting me in a Christmas Mood, Yeah, I think it's working.  I found myself humming "We Three Kings" while sorting laundry this morning AND I, willingly, began work on the annual Christmas Letter.  Progress my friends, progress.

​Here's how we are looking as of today:

​Merry December 1st, my friends