My favorite things about Christmas » decorations

Are you thinking about Christmas yet?

2Eklectik — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:08:56 +0000

: Heat Miser & Snow Miser

It’s still April, but as I was driving my daughter to soccer practice this morning I noticed someone taking down their Christamas lights which I didn’t really think was too strange since I had only taken mine down a few weeks ago.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about how much time and effort goes into setting up for Christmas, all the decorations, cooking and preparation – then it’s over. I know some people (in-laws actually) who take down their Christmas tree and decorations on the 26th. We usually wait a few weeks until about mid-January, but this year the weather was so cold, and there was so much snow, there wasn’t good enough weather until mid February.

Naturally, on the first day of good weather, my daughter wanted to go outside and play some soccer. So after about 30 minutes of slipping in the yard in half melted slush and the last few mounds of snow, I headed inside to change my boots and put on sneakers so I could climb the ladder and take down the outside lights. With my sneakers on, the slight twinge in my back turned into a fully aggravated sciatic nerve that landed me on the floor writhing in pain.

About a week later, after slowly regaining my ability to walk without searing pain, NY was hit by record rainfall, so the lights stayed up a little longer. Finally, by the end of March, the weather had cleared and my back felt better, so about two weeks before Easter, I finally got to take our outside lights down (just in time to start decorating for Easter).

So as I was driving to soccer and saw someone else taking their lights down, aside from a sympatheic twinge in my back, it was no big deal, but started me thinking about how many more days it is until they go back up (fyi ~ 230 days).

When do you start Decorating for Christmas?

2Eklectik — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:46:28 +0000

Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, and then it’s Black Friday and the countdown of the number of shopping days left until Christmas. Typically, all our Christmas decorating is done during the long weekend after Thanksgiving – but there is so much to do, it almost takes the fun out of it.

First, I have to carry all the boxes down from the attic and once again figure out where everything is. Even though all the boxes started out labeled with their contents, my wife’s desire to ‘just put everything away’ in mid January means the ornaments and decorations usually land in the first available empty box. So just getting things organized to the point where we can start decorating is a task in itself.

As much as I love my children (7 yr old twins right now), if I hear another ‘can we start decorating now’ or ‘when are you going to put up the lights outside?’, I think my head will explode. So the first order of business is to get their tree set up so they can start decorating with their favorite sports and Disney ornaments. This also allows me the time to assemble our larger ‘family’ tree (yes it’s artificial), checking to make sure all of the almost 3000 lights are working (and yes that’s ~3000 lights on a 7′ tree – it glows!). So while the kids are merrily trimming their tree, my wife and I go about sorting through the rest of the decorations, finding old favorites, and those more recently purchased. While the inside decorations are easy to set up, there are a lot of them, and then there’s the Village.

Our Christmas Village has evolved from being strictly the New England village series, to New England with a North Pole building (or two) to now being almost exclusively the North Pole series (all from Department 56). This transformation was the result of our children’s love of the various Holiday specials (Rudolph, Frosty, The Grinch, etc) which makes it easier for them to associate with a Gum Drop Factory, than a Village Hall. Also, once they realize that the Buffalo snow you’re using for the Village can double as a beard, you might as well just stop trying to decorate and enjoy the absurdity of it.

Once the inside of the house is completed, or almost, decorating the outside of the house still remains, but this requires the cooperation of the weather. As much as I enjoy Christmas, I don’t really look forward to climbing a 25ft extension ladder (sometimes in a rather chilly wind) to hand icicle lights on our house. But once completed, the lights on the house and bushes, the mini xmas trees, Candy Canes, and the large wreath hung over our front door always brings a smile to my face.

Now that all the decorations are up and the boxes are empty, it’s time to bring them back into the attic until it’s time to take it all down again. It’s a lot of work, packed into only a few days, that gets to be enjoyed for basically the month of December, and maybe a week or two in January.

So this year, to take some of the stress out of decorating, an dmake the Season a little longer, my wife asked me to start bringing down some of the Christmas items while I was in the attic putting away the Halloween decorations.

This naturally got me to thinking - is it ever too early to start putting up the Christmas decorations?

Or, are you an ‘extremist’ who simply leaves their house decorated all year long? and if you do WHY?

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A Halloween table centerpiece

2Eklectik — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:49:51 +0000

: Haunted M&M House

It’s only Columbus Day weekend, and already one of the department stores in a nearby mall, has opened their Christmas Store. Maybe I’m getting older , but it seems as though it opens earlier and earlier every year (although my wife insists that it opens on the same weekend every year). As we walked around the displays of decorated trees, ornaments and Christmas Villages, tucked in the far corner was a display of Halloween decorations. Every year since I’ve known my wife, we’ve set up a village scene under or near our tree. Our village is a combination of the New England and North Pole series of houses. Over the past few years, Department 56 has also been producing a Halloween series of houses, figures and accessories, which started me thinking (and that’s usually a dangerous thing) does anyone set up an elaborate Halloween Village?

Since our twins are now 7 yrs old, Halloween is all about getting dressed up (this year it’s Darth Vader and Hanna Montana) meeting their friends and getting as much candy as possible. Like most people (I imagine) the majority of our decorating is done outside, since that’s what all the Trick or Treaters will see. However, as the kids have gotten older and have different groups of friends, my wife & I typically end up in different parts of the neighborhood. Luckily, my mother-in-law, comes over to hand out the candy at our house, and my sister-in-law and her husband also join us Trick or Treating (also in costume – which the kids love). So once the kids have collected all the candy they can carry (and start to get hungry) we all head back for dinner and a little conversation.

In order to keep up the Halloween atmosphere, what started as a few spooky faces taped onto the doors, has evolved into light up pumpkins, black wire trees, window decals and whatever my wife saw last year that we need to add to this year’s decorations. The one thing that doesn’t change is the fact that we need to have centerpiece for the table (the pizza or Chinese food just wouldn’t taste the same without it). Ours, as you can see below, is fairly simple.

So, like I said before – does anyone out there have a whole Halloween Village set up with haunted houses, graveyard, dead trees, ghosts, etc. Even if you just have a spooky little table display like ours, it’s not time for Christmas in the City yet, so let’s see what you’ve got.

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