I hope those how celebrate Christmas had a good holiday. I hate to use the Merry or Happy as there are many for whom that won’t happen, but good holiday has a larger definition and is more inclusive. (By the way - Queen Victoria was the one who changed the expression from Merry to Happy in Britain. Why? Well what we think of as the meaning of Merry is not what it then meant. To wish someone a Merry Christmas then, was to wish them a drunken Christmas.)
Did you get all of your holiday preparations done on time? I didn’t. Between time lost back in October and November to my husband’s injured shoulder/arm, doing an assortment of tasks twice to get them done finally and correctly, work, and my general laziness, compounded by the fact that I lost 2 evenings (which should have been 3 - but more on that later) to the Candlelight Nights reenactment event we do with our reenactment unit just before Christmas, I fell behind - even for me.
Normally I would have everything I wanted to do finished, except my (infamous) Teddy Christmas Village setup. Over the years it has become normal for me to be setting it up on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day night, or even just after same. Dinner for Christmas Eve would be planned in advance,gifts wrapped, all the other trees and decorations up and in place. Not this year.
As I wrote last week, I had set up the living room and dining room and front hall decorations - mostly - in advance. I put artificial roping over the windows in the living and dining room and did so this year in the dining room. The living room involves moving a coffee table from in front of the windows to hang the roping there - and an embroidered hoop piece that I put in the center of the roping. (The coffee table is there and not in front of the sofa since it became husband’s weaving room and while not heavy is shoved between 2 chairs and therefore hard to move.) At Christmas Eve the roping was still waiting. I put it back the box and sat the embroidered piece on a chair (which will not be sat in anyway). While doing this annoys me - the lack of the roping does not change the holiday in any way.
Last week, you may remember, I assembled the tree while writing my post to you. On Thursday night I brought up the two boxes of decorations that go on it first (the nicer ones), put “Lion in Winter” in the DVD player (a tradition with husband and me) and started on decorating the tree. It took a few hours but the decorations went on the tree. I put them on the tree in sections as there are so many that it makes it easier to see them. I put angels on the top section of the tree all around - or at least on the 3 sides one can actually see. On the front of the tree I put the ornaments we have bought on vacation - and about vacation - I remember as I start to leave a vertical space for key chain we bought at one of the Smithsonian Air and Space museums of a red fabric piece which says “remove before flight” as used on planes. An ornament does not have to be an actual ornament is something we figured out a number of years ago. (We were someplace and they had the same piece as a key ring -not this one - and as an ornament. Key ring was $3, ornament was $15 - we bought the key ring.) In addition to key rings, we have bought the pins that people put on their hats to show that they have been someplace and a variety of other small items. On the side of the tree facing the front hall and to the left of the vacation ornaments are the Santa ornaments - there I have to leave a space long enough for Santa hanging from a parachute until I come to it. To the left of the them are the teddy bear ornaments - and above them the ones dated with our anniversary - towards the back of the tree - paper houses are hanging. On the other side of the tree - facing the side of the room, but visible are sections with stars, characters (Snoopy, Alice in Wonderland...), (fake) candy, vehicles and so on. Then other ornaments are mixed in around the tree in all of these - handmade ornaments (some embroidered of course), and so on.
Friday night we were suppose to be at the Candlelight event, but there was a huge rain storm coming in and the restoration canceled the night on Thursday as it would be too dangerous for people to be out in the storm and they figured few people would come. So I was able to work on the other two boxes of ornaments (while watching the second version of “Lion in Winter” that we have. These boxes have larger ornaments - balls and such - so there are less of them. I put the more “important” of them on the tree - and stopped. The back of the tree - the side facing the window and not seen in the room (or outside as the drapes are closed) is naked this year - for the first time ever. I cleared up the room and stored the boxes downstairs. As I took a box down I brought a large Santa or elf figure upstairs. This also allowed us to food shop Friday afternoon. While I had already bought stuff earlier in the week to make a Brunswick stew for Christmas Eve dinner, we also need food items that don’t have to be cooked or cook quickly to eat for dinner when we come home at around 10:30/11 pm after the events.
Saturday night (well, actually afternoon) we ate a bigger lunch than normal at Wendys as we were eating earlier and would eat dinner much later than normal. We then went home to dress in our period style clothing. I had previously laid out my clothing - in reverse order of how they worn so the first piece to be put on is at the top of the pile and the last (my apron) is at the bottom of the pile. I put on my “stockings” and shoes (I can’t reach the shoes after I put on my stays) and then my “shift” (a white more or less A-line dress that serves as underwear in period). Over this I wear “stays” - not a corset and not worn tightly tied as Scarlet O’Hara wore her corset. The stays have lacing up the back and front and I only open the front lacing to put them on and off. I had them on and laced up the front. I then pulled the lacing to tighten them (only to the feel of “a gentle hug” and then to tie them - suddenly I was holding a piece of the lacing in my hand and the rest had mostly unlaced itself. The lacing had torn apart! I do not have a spare lace as it came with (on) the stays. Husband suggested that I get some fabric seam tape from our studio. I ran down glad of a solution. Uh, Oh! I had stored his weaving stuff - yarns, finished pieces, table on my side of the studio. I had taken out what I thought we might need to access - safety pins, thread spools and such, but we never need seam tape - so I could not get any. On my way back upstairs the thought hit me, I could pull the seam tape in the waistband of my other petticoat (skirt) out and use it - no problem unless I decide to wear my other petticoat the next night - then an even better idea hit - I have a spare apron and have it used it while cooking at events so it is stained and I would not be wearing it during this event. I pulled it out. I started trying to lace the stays with it - end was stiff and it was wider than the lacing - I grabbed a pen and used to point to push the lacing into each hole - and it worked great (no one sees it as it under the rest of my clothing.) We then rushed - afraid to be late to get there as husband is in charge and the first night we have to make sure the building is set up right and that we have candles, etc. We got there half an hour early to be there an hour before the event started! We sat in the car until we saw some employees of the restoration go into the building.
Everything we needed was there and we rearranged things from how they had been left for us to how we needed them. As unit members came in each started setting up what they normally work with. We made sure to put the keys to the building in the spot where they are suppose to be kept (don’t want to miss them when we go to lock up later). As 4pm approached we lit the candles inside the house and on the steps outside. Three of the rooms are behind clear half height gates, the others are walk through. I put on my cap and offered the mirror in one of the gated off rooms to other women in our unit before I slide that gate into place, the last of the gates to be put in place. One of the fellows had the fire going in the kitchen and the musician was ready. We had a very successful and fun - both for the crowds and us - evening. Members each do whatever they feel they would like to do at the event - sing, greet people at the door and tell them about the building, be a person of the past (as husband and I do) and talk about the house and “our” time as someone who knows nothing of the future, just up to the matching day in 1775. We are on the village for some of our fellows to fire their muskets 3 times during the night in front of the building. When we went back on Sunday night we found out that 1500 people had come through the village the night before! And Sunday night seemed to have almost as many people.
Saturday night after we came home, changed our clothes and had dinner I brought up the rest of my Santas and elves and set all of them up in the living room at the entrance to the room. (Most of them were Christmas gifts from someone husband worked with, two I made, one we bought, and one is husband’s since he was a boy. At this point the excess packing was stored away and the room almost finished - for this year at least.
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday - eat lunch early and more than usual, change clothes, drive to restoration village - not as early this time as we knew that everything was ready for us. The event was basically a repeat of the night before (and really every night we do this), while always being different based on who comes through the building and their interests as life in 1775 had about as many facets as life does today and one or the other of us (or several of us) will be able to talk on the different facets.
After we, again, came home, changed our clothes and had dinner, I went back to Christmas decorating. I brought up our Christmas stockings - one pair red and white fur with names for use in the years that there is something for them, one pair decorated with “Santa Claus, the movie” and one pair I embroidered for us. There are is also a line of small stockings with the names of our Cabbage Patch kids on them (yes, we are that silly). I also boiled the chicken I needed for the Brunswick stew for Christmas Eve dinner.
Christmas Eve day we went out for lunch and some short errands as places closed early. While I cooked our dinner and set the table in the dining room - I had to, again, take the stuff we had brought back into the house from the RV to the RV. Since the stew cooks a long time and has to be watched, I brought up and assembled the dining room tree and decorated it with brass ornaments we have received as members of Colonial Williamsburg. I have, somehow, duplicates of two them and the two duplicates I put on the main tree in the living room. I then took the handmade ornaments I had set aside as I did the main tree (the handmade ornaments are split between the two trees) and set up the tree in the studio for them and put them on the tree - the woven wheat snowflake I use for star on top (made by husband) needed a bit of reinforcing glue on one point and I fixed it.
Ah, all that will/can be done was done at this point. I turned on the living room and studio tree lights and finished cooking dinner. We had dinner, I did the dishes. I put the few (3) gifts we had bought ourselves in recycled Christmas gift bags. Husband wrapped his 2 nieces’ Christmas gifts in Christmas paper and their birthday gifts in different in different paper and we put them in bags for Christmas Day. We then went to Midnight Mass.
Husband later went up to bed before me and I put our gifts under the tree - next to the empty fancy gift boxes there for “show”.
Christmas Day was spent at his sister’s house and the less said about it, the better. Today was the 26th. I paid all the bills due until after New Year’s Day, we mailed them, we went to the bank and transferred money to cover them and then came home for a quiet evening to rest up. Tomorrow night we go back to the Candlelight Nights through Saturday night. Ah, being in 1775 for 3 more nights - something we love. Then the teddy village will be changed from fall to Winter/Christmas.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
None of us can do everything. I could be upset and kicking myself for not getting all of the decorating done, but I did the best I could. Husband points out that there is nothing missing when one looks at it all. Another year, more will be done.
Relax - you can only do the best you can - in decorating and organizing. New Year’s Day will be here before I talk with you again - remember think of what you might want to change or improve and decide to try. Don’t make resolutions - just pick something and think about what you can do. And don’t forget - every day is the start of a new year.
I wish a happy, and healthy new year to all of you.
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