Also, as I grow older, I realize that there is something very comfortable and comforting about tradition, especially in a world that moves at warp speed, often slipping from our grasp before we can even decide where we want to hang on. So perhaps when we pull those decorations down out of the attic, the flood gates of memories from holidays past come gushing out when we open up the boxes. And somehow the ground upon which we stand feels a little more firm.
But still....At some point I came to the realization that, frankly, I DON'T feel the urge every year. I could probably trace it back to my childhood, void of tradition for the most part. Like my mother, I often tend to be driven by the high value of practicality, so some years the thought of expending all that time and effort to "deck them halls and all that stuff" seems like an utterly ridiculous notion. I mean, really. Or maybe some years our busyness places holiday decorating as just one more "to-do" on a list that is already impossible to conquer. Besides, there are no children to delight (or disappoint) so perhaps it's easier to simply wallow in my holiday blues.
Several years ago I made another important connection: I HATE stringing the lights on the Christmas tree!!! Maybe that's the root of this issue. And besides, the hubs is allergic so the month of December became a miserable sneezefest for him. I found a way to nip the mold issue in the bud but those LIGHTS!! Ugh. They continued to plague me. So one year after Christmas in a moment of post-holiday-discount weakness, I proposed that we (gasp) buy a pre-lit fake and forget about it. You can't have it all so there are things I miss about the real deal but for ME at least, the plus column has the most entries. Best decision EVER!!!! Now, the darn thing comes out of the box in 3 easy pieces, "plug 'n play" ready to decorate in 5 minutes. Voila!!
This year presented some interesting extenuating circumstances. If you've been reading, you know we're in a temporary living situation with mostly furniture that is not our own. Therefore, my modern-ish Christmas decor from last year simply doesn't work in this setting. So, do we bag it completely or try to find some middle ground? My original vote was to "ignore and look forward" but in the end I opted for some simple adaptation of our ghosts of Christmas past. I look at is as yet another opportunity for another creative decorating"mash-up" (see my 9.18.11 post).
Last year looked like this:
And below is how I changed it up. Over the years, I have accumulated more ornaments than I need for the tree so I often find other ways (see above) to display the ones that don't make it to the tree. Or maybe I give some of them a year off. This year I decided to keep it simple. Nothing but the tree and, instead of last year's bright mod color palette of red/turquoise/orange/pink, I used only white/silver/gold/pink to go with the soft neutral colors of the room.
So there you have it. That's how it all went up over here on Fenton Place. In a couple of weeks, I'll likely by annoyed at the thought of having to pack it all up again. But years from now I'll look back on this holiday season with gratitude, remembering what a blessing it was to be given such a lovely transitional space to call home and how we chose to make it our own.
