My usual tradition is to bring Christmas in the house the day after Thanksgiving – I mean I am chomping at the bit once the Turkey Day company has taken the tupperware home filled with Tday leftovers. The stuff stays up until just before the New Year, and it always feels a little like it was too short a Christmas season, with all the work that goes into setting it up, but for some reason I always want a clean slate come Jan. 1.
This year…. welp. I casually mentioned I felt like putting up the tree this weekend even though I knew that’s just ludicrous and really pushing the decorating envelope. BUT.. the kids said.. All our neighbors have their tree up and lights outside up already! (they live just over the hill from us) What? What. Really?…. Well.. then….
You know, I think we all feel like we need a little extra cheer this year… it’s been far too long, the pandemic misery, the political misery… I believe we’ve all had just about enough – and the spirit of Christmas is just the ticket to drag us up out of the trenches a bit. Heck I’ve already watched two Hallmark movies – They billed them as new, but they are the same story recycled over and over. The poor (single) girl who comes to be the nanny or whatever and eventually she and the Prince of the Kingdom marry… or the woman who comes home for Christmas to help the parents or her favorite Aunt with something, a dying business, the selling of the family home… enter the old flame. Still… something about those Hallmark movies, an uncomplicated sugary christmas drenched storyline that always has a happy ending, complete with fake snow on many locations… well it’s sure enough uplifting.
Our tree though. Sometimes we do a real tree, (we’re actually growing christmas trees up on the hill) sometimes a fake tree – (I don’t want to deal with keeping the dogs away from drinking the tree water… plus all those dead needles, too much fire worry) The fake tree down in the basement has seen better days. Not all of the lights light up and it’s a heavy son of a B*tch. Since it’s always yours truly dragging that thing out of the basement lest I want to wait till Santa’s a$$ is already stuck in the chimney, I have to do it myself. That tree needed a replacement.
I went out yesterday – thinking it’s before Thanksgiving, surely I can find a decent fake tree somewhere. Nope. What was available is mostly sold out and what was supposed to be available is stuck on a container somewhere, apparently. Walmart had a few cheap versions left and so I grabbed one – I don’t love it, but this will have to do for this year. I put a smaller charlie brown tree next to it to help it limp along – and at the risk of totally offending you because I am usually one of those who says – Oh COME ON, it’s not even THANKSGIVING YET, LET THE THANKS and TURKEY HAVE IT’S DAY- here you go.
This year I did things a little differently – the theme for my trees is usually – everything I have all at once all up on the tree. I decided to do more of a nature themed tree but since the tree is so clearly fake? It doesn’t look so nature-like. The small tree next to it has the ornaments I cherish most, the ones my children made when they were little. And my collection of OLD ornaments found at flea markets and antique shops around New England are in a big bowl on the ottoman. The rest of the house is still all about Fall and the Thanksgiving feast until the 26th.
I hope all is well in your neck of the woods – If you care to share your traditions, I’d love to hear about them –
Till soon –
Karen 
Inside the house I’ve brought in fall – one of my favorite seasons to decorate. Pumpkins everywhere! and.. I bring bittersweet vine in from the fields and drape them along the fireplace mantels. There are pumpkins on the front door steps and over the door itself on the “shelf”, too.
