Finding Christmas
I live alone. Family is distant, friends abound but don't share the living space of course. Offspring have never sprung off so I've developed a life that runs to suit myself and no other. Which is all well and good until something like Christmas comes along. Last year I recall that I wrote it just didn't seem like Christmas. This year I'm setting out to change that. I listen relentlessly to my "Christmas" iTunes playlist (now up to 93 songs which plays for over five straight hours) and I'm doing the decorations. The wreath is already hung, though not yet jazzed up, and the tabletop tree is cooling in the garage awaiting its setup.
The problem has been that I have a box of Christmas stuff from the tree stand to ornaments to a string of battery-powered LED lights for the wreath and I have been unable to find that box. Yesterday was finally gut-check day. I even crawled into the under-stair storage area to look for the box. Just could not find it. Finally I pulled a box marked "Christmas" out of a corner and yanked it open to find ... kitchenware. Hunh? Then it hit me. I had originally packed that box with Christmas until I had too much of holiday stuff to fit. So I used an inexpensive plastic footlocker to repack all the Christmas goodies. D'oh! The footlocker has been sitting in the garage, easily accessible all this time.
So now the Box o' Cheer is all wiped off of car hole grit and sitting in the living room and today the tree goes up and the decoration begins. I've added Hallmark's "Santas of the World" miniature set as my ornament purchase this year. I'd like to get a string of miniature bubble lights if such a thing exists. Having grown up with bubble lights, I find that they just define Christmas tree decoration for me. If anyone cares to weigh in with favorite ornaments or ornament types, I'd love to hear it.
I also must tip my hat to my former mother-in-law "Yuletide Carole." A woman of rare artistic ability who did Christmas like no one else. A collection of Nativity scenes practically had to fight for space in the house with the several highly-decorated trees. That's right, I said "several." She is a Christmas Goddess. I have never before seen a tree like hers that has so many Hallmark "Sound and Motion" ornaments (which plug into light strings to power all sorts of little scenes) that the lights at the top of the tree are dimmed due to the 'lectricity load on the light strand.