Tag: Christmas decorations

Colorful Friday

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The holidays are upon us. Around these parts, the Christmas decorations in people’s yards seem to have gone up extra early, many even before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if this is people wanting to fast forward everything to the end of 2020, or people just being in dire need of extra cheer. My guess is that it is a little bit of a mix of both things. Anyway, we’ll be putting our decorations up this weekend, which is on par with our typical schedule every year (creatures of habit, I suppose). Happy Friday, friends!!! My regular readers know that Fridays are devoted to “the stuff” in life. On Friday, I discuss three favorite things, or websites, or books, or beauty products, etc. that have made my life more interesting and fun. Welcome to Favorite Things Friday!! Please check out previous Friday listings for more of my favorites and please add your favorites to my Comments section. Here are my favorites for today:

Nature Made CholestOff – I have given blood three times this year. This is more often than most years, truthfully, because I have been monitoring my coronavirus antibodies, but still, giving blood is a good thing to do for yourself and for others, for a myriad of reasons. While I have been disappointed, after each session with my antibody results (negative so far), more alarmingly, my cholesterol readings were a tad scary, from my first two results, from giving blood. I am always loathe to recommend supplements to anyone. Of course, you should always discuss supplements with your doctor before taking them. That being said, I have been taking this supplement for the last few months, without changing my eating habits too much. I was happy to see that my cholesterol reading was the lowest that it has been this year, after this last session of giving blood. And that was from blood given a few days after our Thanksgiving feast. (butter, sausage stuffing, turkey, gravy – in other words, “Cholestafest!”)

Zuke’s Mini Naturals – It turns out (as per our dog trainer) that we have been way too generous with our giant dog treats for minimum good behavior from our fur friends. We have a lot of lessons to teach our canine trio, and we don’t want them to get fat in the process. Zuke’s treats have 3 calories each and those little crumbs must pack a lot of flavor, because our dogs are willing to do their “whole bag of tricks” for one little morsel. I order my bags of Zuke’s on Amazon.

Marco Polo app – This is a fun app. I didn’t think I would like it, but a teacher friend was raving about it, and I am a curious person. Basically, it is an app that allows you to send out recorded video messages to each other, without having to be available at the same time. I don’t like being on video. I don’t like watching videos. (I’m always looking for the written transcript.) Yet, I still had a lot of fun with this yesterday. I sent my friend a few videos of me, all masked up, in the hair salon. She was patient with my learning curve, and like the excellent teacher who she is, she encouraged my effort and told me that she was proud of me. (I hope that she saw that I was beaming under my mask)

Have a wonderful, comforting, restful, hopeful, brightly lit weekend, my friends!!!!

The Magic

There is a man who lives up the road from us, who puts on a synchronized to music, Holiday light show, the likes that I have never seen. It beats the shows that I have witnessed at high-end outdoor shopping malls. There is no doubt in my mind that this man must have worked as a light and sound engineer for Disney, or was a major concert engineer for big time bands, in his younger years. He even has a snow machine (which in the South, equates to bubbles that seriously look like real snow, until you taste a “flake”.) The extravaganza goes on forever. He even incorporates Hanukkah and Kwanzaa music. Last night, there was a line of cars, walkers and bikers staring at the wondrous sight. Little kids were dancing in the streets. The mastermind, himself, passed around candy canes. It was overwhelmingly, breathtakingly fabulous. And I am sure that his immediate neighbors are ready to kill him.

I had such a staggering concoction of emotions stirring up in me, as I watched the lights dance vividly to all the familiar Christmas tunes which I have heard for almost 49 years now. I had a childlike giddiness and anticipation, mixed with some nostalgia, plus some numbness from sensory overload, with a pinch of annoyance and sympathy for his neighbors across the street, all topped with a contagious joy that came from admiration and pride for this man’s talent and spirit and excitement. I wanted it to end and yet to never end, all at the same time.

It struck me as to why we have come to so outwardly express our jubilance for the holiday season, as a society. There is probably no other time in the year, where the blend of feelings and emotions inside of each of us, reaches such a crescendo, such a summit, such a summation of what it feels to be alive, that it has to burst out of us, somehow, in brightly colored lights, in loudly-sung, familiar, merry songs, in rich, decadent food, and in sparkly apparel. And then, after all of that “bursting”, we are left searching for some solace and calm, which we find in a quiet, peaceful manger scene or a beautiful lighted candle, or in the peaceful face of a sleeping loved one, or in an untouched snowy night under a starry sky. Perhaps, the holidays are just a microcosm of our entire living experience. I guess that is maybe the real meaning of the oft quoted, “magic of the holidays.”

Cacophony

Yesterday, we were perusing a really cool, modern, city bike shop. While making our purchases, sitting right by the cash register, I noticed a little display, of tiny bike bells, guaranteed to make the loudest, longest ringing sound that a bike bell has ever made. So like any mature middle-aged person, I rang one of the bells. Sure enough, the advertisements were not a lie. There were several different colors of bells on the display, so without really thinking, more on impulse, I guess, I decided to try every color at once (as if the color of the metal was going to make any difference in the sound). It was like a little bell symphony – a loud and annoying and never-ending one.

The clerk had a wincing look on her face and a tight smile as she wrapped up our purchases.

“Ugh. I’m sorry about my lack of impulse control,” I said. “You probably hate these bells. It’s like the stores that keep their animated holiday decorations right by the register. While the rest of us are all kind of enchanted by the bobbing Elvis Christmas dog belting out “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas” with just a press of its cute little paw in a mitten, the cashier is ready to beat anyone black and blue with the mechanical Elvis dog, because she or he has already seen and heard the dog’s little song and dance, 18,942 times and it isn’t even Halloween yet.”

“Exactly,” she said with a fatigued look on her face, watching my hands very closely, just daring me to make the unfortunate decision to ring yet another bell.

I just smiled, thanked her, took my package and left. I’m a mature woman. Plus, I think that being pelted by a box of metal bike bells would be very painful.

Image result for quotes about annoying animated CHristmas decorations

Deck the Halls

(Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit) We might start putting up our Christmas decorations today.  I’m not sure that I’m ready yet.  At the risk of sounding Grinchy, I get a little bit claustrophobic if they are up too long.  My daughter can’t wait to put up the Christmas decorations, although from little girl on, she thinks that we are way too understated when it comes to lights and inflatables.  I imagine that her house might end up on the TV show, The Great Christmas Light Fight.  It will be like walking through the Macy’s Day Parade to get to her front door.  I hope that she never loses her enthusiasm.

My favorite decorations by far, are our Christmas ornaments.  We have collected them from day trips and vacations that have all held special meaning to our family’s collective memory book.  Many of the ornaments are handmade by the kids, when the kids were quite young.  My middle son always felt that whatever he had made at school, was a true masterpiece and he carefully brought everything home and looked for grand spots to showcase his work.  One ornament that he made in preschool was a large coloring page.  It depicts an angel and it says “From Your Little Angel”.  It appears that he took about two seconds to color it, as only the angel’s face is colored, in a dark, scribbled blue, with little care to stay in the lines.  I imagine that there was a buddy playing with Matchbox cars or something, that he was probably wanting to get to, as coloring was never a huge interest to my boys.  Still, he treats this ornament as a masterpiece to this day.  So do I.

My daughter and my eldest son have always been artistic so they have a fair amount of homemade ornaments to deck the tree out with too, but my youngest son maybe has 1.5 – 2 handmade ornaments, to his name.  He was the kid that I had to find the “important papers parents have to sign”, balled up at the bottom of his book bag, and shake off the cookie crumbs and hope that the papers weren’t mixed with a crushed banana.  So my guess is, that very few of his handmade baubles actually made the bus ride home, in one piece.  It was just last year, that he came to the full realization that the tree was adorned with mostly his siblings’ creations, so at age 17, he got busy making up for lost time.  He made large, obnoxious, colorful decorations, prominently displaying them on the tree, signed with his name so large and arresting, Mr. Magoo couldn’t have missed it.  John Hancock would have been impressed.  My son makes me laugh.

I am always shocked that Christmas decorations show the wear and tear of aging, just like everything else.  I mean, we keep them displayed for about three weeks, we walk around them gingerly, as they are precious family heirlooms, and then before the new year, we carefully wrap them up, like mummies and put them back in the tomb of our our attic.  Still, every year the decorations are a little more faded and dated, the Santas’ beards are little more sparse, and at least one or two ornaments get broken and become a memory of what used to be.  Nothing seems to escape the aging process, even being hidden away in an effort to be preserved for eternity.  Maybe that’s why the holidays are so nostalgic.  They are a reminder of the cycle of life and that nothing is immune to this natural cycle.  Nothing.

I can’t end this post on a melancholy note, though.  There is too much good fun and laughter to be had, as we unpack our decorations and all of the memories that get unpacked with them.  There is hot cocoa to be drunk and Bing Crosby to be listened to, while we do it.  There is a tree farm waiting for us to arrive, to start squabbling amongst ourselves over which tree we should buy this year, to hold and showcase the children’s masterpieces.  Maybe I won’t get claustrophobic if we start decorating today.  Maybe it will be wonderful to be surrounded by the blue-faced angel and the Santa with the sparse beard.  Maybe we should even put out some more lights this year.  Why not?