Well, Thanksgiving is behind us. Now we move on to the December holidays. While due to differences in religion, we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah, 99% of the decorating is for Christmas.
Normally we would have put our outside decorations up this past week, but due to running around to find a turkey and shop for Thanksgiving dinner at the last minute, we did not get a chance to do so. We are currently having rain. We plan to put up the outside decorations on Thursday - it is not suppose to be raining then and it is suppose to go to a relatively “toasty” 59 degrees Fahrenheit.
We put strands of lights on our larger bushes and 2 small trees in front of our house. We put a wreath (artificial) each on our front and side doors. We also have swags (again artificial) which we hang from our light fixtures on either side of the front door. Last year we added a strand of red lights around our white mail box post - gives the look of, sort of, a candy cane. We used to have wreaths on our lower front windows and swags under them, but we cannot do so since we had our windows and siding replaced. The outside lights are controlled by a timer. We have one in our basement for the outlets that they are plugged into - since they are on their own circuit breaker this is a heavy duty timer, which works for the circuit. We also put battery operated candles in our front windows which go on for 6 hours a night automatically. We used to have plug in window candles, but when we replaced the windows, we found that there was a ledge of plastic on the inside of the window which meant that the candle had trouble staying on the window sill and leaned against the window blinds and would have melted them - so we replaced them with these LED candles -no heat so they do not melt the shades.
This past weekend I took out my Christmas dishes. These are not fancy china to be used for company. They are everyday dishes. I use them for dinner during the holidays. I also have Christmas glasses - they were a “spend this amount and get a gift” that I got when I bought a baby gift for a friend decades ago. I keep the dishes and glasses in their original boxes in the gas meter closet in our basement and wash them before I use them each year. I have only 3 glasses - the fourth one broke - and I keep a small 2 piece nativity set in the 4th space in the box, so the nativity goes out when I take out the glasses. I only take out 2 of the glasses and 2 of the cups to the dishes as I am the only one who uses them. Husband has certain plastic glasses he prefers and I put one out for him as it not worth insisting that he use the holiday stuff.
Husband, as I have mentioned before, got a loom last Christmas. It is a good size piece of furniture, 32 inches wide and about the same size deep. It is set up in the living room as are various related items, including a small table and large plastic boxes of yarn/finished pieces. It does not fill the room, but since it sits in the middle of the room, it takes up much of the floor space. When husband set it up last January, I told him that I expected the living room back after Thanksgiving until January so that I could decorate. I never really expected same, and I will be decorating around the loom etc. when I decorate as I got a blank stare when I asked when the loom was being stored for the season. Our dining room has additional items for his weaving, mostly items used to wash the woven items after they are made (to draw the threads together into fabric) which is done in our kitchen. At some point the items other than the loom will have to be moved somewhere - my guess is the walkways of our studio behind the kitchen. The nativity mentioned above goes into a display case in a corner of the living room - normally it is the center of the shelf. Right now it is on a corner of the shelf as I could not open the door to the cabinet due to the weaving boxes stored adjacent to the cabinet, but managed to get it open enough to put the nativity just inside the door. I will move it when I move the boxes elsewhere - really, they have to moved or no tree.
The dining room also has stuff which needs to go out to our RV. (This is all the stuff I had to move to use the dining room table last week.) The last chance we figure to use the RV is this coming weekend and we are pretty sure we will not - then all will go out there for winter storage. It is stuff that is used seasonally in the RV - mostly for cold weather travel - and has to be stored in the house when not being used in the RV.
Why does the dining room have to be cleared out to decorate the living room? Because there is a good sized wooden box piece of furniture in the living room where the tree goes. Husband made this some years ago. It looks like what was called a “hope chest” for a young woman to store the items she made for when she got married. This one, however, holds DVDs. Instead of the top lifting the front drops down and drawers come out to hold the DVDs. It is on wheels (we knew we had to move it back and forth to the dining room once a year) and is rolled to the far wall of the dining room (where the table normally is and all the stuff to deal with is now) and stays there for the season with the table in the center of the room where normal people put it all the time.
I admit to still having Thanksgiving decorations out. I have a small light up “house in a tree trunk” which I painted some years ago and also painted a ceramic bear family and their guests coming to the house. I have since added some small purchased bears. Every year I set it up with the bear family at the house and the other bears coming there. This year after the holiday I had the idea to turn the visitors around and they are now “on their way home”. There are a few other small items to be put away also - it all fits in one box. I plan on it all being stored by the end of the week - it only took 15 minutes to put out.
I have large plastic boxes of stuff to put out for Christmas in the basement. We used to keep it in the garage, but we are getting older - hard to climb up and take out and store the boxes - and the boxes are getting heavier, so I found a spot in the basement to store them. There are decorations for the living room, front hall, dining room and kitchen as well as the ornaments for the trees and my teddy bear Christmas village figurines, buildings, etc.
More on all that in future posts - or I would have nothing to post. We bought a new snow blower Monday. We cannot find anyone who does “residential snow removal” and have to be able to do it on our own. Our old snow blower is probably around 30 years old and is large and heavy. We tried starting it over the weekend and it did not start, although it did last summer when we tried it. We had planned on buying this one anyway as it is hard to get to the other one in back of the house and this one, being smaller, we figure we can store it in a small plastic shed in front of our side door. We still have to get the shed and assemble and try out (at least that it starts and moves) the new blower. Husband is researching on what may be wrong with the old one as he wants it as a backup. They were surprised at the (large home big box) store at which we bought the snow blower that we were buying one. I guess everyone else waits until it snows - when it is too late.
I wanted to talk about holiday shopping. Did you go running out on Black Friday or even Thanksgiving? Visit your local stores for Small Business Saturday (started by that so warm hearted American Express credit card company)? Sit all day at work on Monday for Cyber Monday?
We did none of these things. With the exception this year of a TV which husband thought was a good deal (not that we bought/are buying one) which is still on sale at that large box store everyone hates, we have never seen anything worth running for the deal. In addition we don’t buy large amounts of gifts - or stuff for ourselves - for the holidays or otherwise. Are we grinches? No. Husband’s 2 nieces (under 20 years old) always get Christmas gifts from us which we buy. My niece and nephews are in the mid 20's and we mail them checks for Chanukah. Some years ago we agreed with my family not to exchange gifts between the adults. Every year I bought my sister a sweater at a reasonably priced department store (the one with the tool department) with the return card from the gift she had bought me the year before and she would buy me something there also - I was pretty sure with the return card from the sweater I had given her the year before. Gradually this mostly happened with husband and his small extended family also - which was an exchange of cash for check any way.) Husband buys himself a few small items which catch his eye - I then wrap them and Santa puts them under the tree. Generally I don’t get anything. If I do it is a book or a bear item we found on sale during the year and put away until Christmas (one year I forgot we were doing so and read half the book before I remembered). In case you have not figured it out - I have a passion for teddy bears and some of their friends. I believe that a gift should be a token, not an overwhelming “LOOK AT THIS”. The spending of more money for a bigger or more expensive gift does not mean that one is loved or appreciated more - just that someone spent more money, which chances are means they are further into debt than they should be. Plus, more and bigger items mean more clutter in the house!
Speaking of clutter - this is a good time of year to pass along by donation items you no longer need or want which are taking up room in your house. I am planning on donating my winter coat - I have not worn it in years and due to weight loss, I am not even sure it fits anymore. I plan to add to it some dresses I never wear and if we get a chance to go through them - most of the luggage we have as we don’t use luggage with the RV. We will each keep one suitcase and will also keep a rolling backpack. The backpack and a soft bag should fit in the other bag.
So as you are start getting ready this year - remember, whatever you buy or get has to fit somewhere in your home.
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