December 07th, 2021

Behold!  Our one and only Christmas Decoration.  I hope it's impressing the socks off of you because I am serious. That's it.  The whole enchilada.  Admittedly a very small enchilada but at least I made the effort.  I'm sure you've heard this one before, "It's the least that I could do and never let it be said that I didn't do, the least that I could do".

We already know that I cannot put up a tree this year.  Where on earth would I put it?  With the project still crawling slowly forward, the house remains in a state of ish kabibble. The living room stuff is in the guest room, the family room stuff is in the living room and things are stuffed into every conceivable (and inconceivable) space possible. The idea of attempting to add to the current level of chaos in the house with Christmas Frippery is just too much to contemplate.

So as a nod to holiday decoration I found our wreath from last year (and the year before that and the year before that etc) perked it up a little bit and with Tim's help (I cannot reach the top of the door to hang the doggone thing) posted it on the front door.  Taadaa.

I considered putting up the outside lights. Well I considered it for about 30 seconds.    And this part is entirely my fault.  In an attempt to reduce the number of bins in the utility room, instead of packing away Christmas last year in a very organized, easily labeled and therefore easily identifiable bins as I would normally do, I tried to conserve space.

That means that if I had a Snowman shaped space in a box of tree lights, then the snowman went in a box that normally would have only held (and been labeled) tree lights.  If the tree ornament box had a spot just the right size for Santa's Sleigh, I tucked it right in there, instead of a separate bin marked table decorations. And all of that is to explain that I would have to take down all of the Christmas bins and rummage through them all to find that one "table decoration" or the outside lights.

Normally it would be no big deal. I mean all of them would have to be dragged out anyway because I would be using all of it!  A little group of snowman here,  the bright pink reindeer over there and of course my big beautiful Father Christmas in his sleigh under the tree.  And the tree!  Well you know that as far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as too many ornaments on the tree!  It would be bright and sparkly and absolutely loaded with stuff.  

But this year, nope.  

The wreath was another story entirely.  It's too big for the bins so every year after Christmas when I'm packing things away, I carefully tuck it into an extra large plastic bag and lay it on top of other things which are already on the top shelves of the utility room.  It's relatively safe there.  And very easy to retrieve. I know exactly where the wreath is at all times.

I cannot say for certain that at some point I won't break down and haul all of the bins down and sort through them to find the outside lights or a table decoration, but today my answer is no. Absolutely no.  

Which does not mean that I have no Christmas Spirit!  I have plenty of that! Christmas lives in my heart not in my decorations.  So here is my final thought on the matter.  We may not have a tree or other Christmassy knick-knacks around the house this year But next year, watch out. I will be making up for it! And that is definitely something for me to look forward to :)