December 08th, 2022

It's this time of year!

The photo was taken of our downtown.  It 's pretty :)  There are houses lit up spotted here and there around and I'm sure as Christmas closes in on us, there will be more and more of them. I like when we drive at night and I can see people's Christmas Trees all decorated inside.  

Our Arboretum, which is usually in it's best glory with decorations of all sorts filling all of the trees and shrubs and sometimes even the ground, is undecorated this year.  The hurricane took down a number of trees and left the remainder with a rather compromised integrity so the decision was made to not stress the trees further with seasonal frippery. It was the right choice of course but it was one of our favourite parts of the holiday since we moved here. We would always walk over twice, once to see it in daylight, because many of the decorations showed best in the light. And then another time, usually Christmas Eve, we would go over once again to admire it fully lit up.  But not this year.

This holiday is a completely different feel to it and it's not just the arboretum.  It's me, I guess.  I did not magically transform into a Christmas Elf, which is my normal state of holiday being.   And try as I might, I do not have the energy or the wherewithal to make the enough effort to fake it.  Oddly, when I confessed it to Tim he said he felt the exact same way.  The "spark" is just absent this year.  

When it came time to consider decorating, well, I knew very well where the outside Christmas Lights were but I just didn't have the Ooomph to put them up. So, like the arboretum, this year will be unlit.  When Joy reminded me of the adorable little silver tree that she once gave me that I could just put on the kitchen table and say..."The tree is up" ....  I said, "maybe".  I did wander through the utility room and sorted through two boxes marked "Christmas" that were at ground level but it wasn't in either of those.  I found the other boxes but they were up very high.  I suppose I could have asked Tim to get them down for me but meh. I guess I didn't care enough to ask.

I said, I suppose this will be a tree-less Christmas, to Tim and he shrugged and said "okay".  I've had them before and I promise you, Christmas Day is still Christmas Day with or without a tree.  It isn't just putting up the tree, y'see, it's decorating and then later undecorating and putting it all back away that is the issue.  It exhausts me just thinking about it this year.

And then my friend and neighbor Debbie gave me a gift.  She is terribly clever and crafty and artsy, y'see.  I was absolutely charmed with my gift and brought it home planning to put it.................somewhere.  I even said to Tim, "here you go, we now have an official Christmas decoration".  He smiled and nodded.

I tried it in several places. It's a small house, now made smaller by the ishkabibble state due to the ongoing construction situation.  I couldn't seem to find anything that was exactly right.  Either it wouldn't stay standing up or it got lost in the miasma.  And there are literally Very Few places it could go.  I hmmmmmed for awhile.  I looked through the pantry and the cupboards hoping for inspiration and taadaa!  I found it.

Way way up on the top shelf of one of the cupboards was a dark green ceramic pot that, on one earlier Christmas, I must have received some sort of Holiday Plant. But I loved the pot so I kept it and it sat, quietly on that shelf, waiting for me to remember that it existed.  I had to get out the big step stool to reach it and I brought it down carefully, washed it, dried it and put it on the table.  I stuffed it with some sparkly tissue paper that I had also saved from a previous year and put the New Decoration from Debbie in it and it was perfect!

When Tim next walked into the room I gave it the Vanna White treatment, "Behold this year's  Christmas Tree" I said.  Tim laughed and was absolutely fine with it. I was better than fine with it. I was delighted.  So delighted in fact, that I took a photo the next day and sent it to my sister who texted in return, "What a cute reindeer!".  I said to myself out loud, "That's a reindeer?"  And looked at it again.

I laughed so hard I cried. It IS a reindeer!  I am so stupid!  I just thought it was an adorable and very festive Christmas decoration of no specific thing and, googly eyes aside, it could have been!  But nope, it is most definitely a reindeer.  LOLOL  I cannot believe that I didn't see it at first. 

​I don't care. This year that cutiecute reindeer is serving as our tree.  Done and Done.  Welcome to our Christmas Tree/Reindeer:

Thank you again Debbie!!