Prepping for Christmas

 After a week of turkey comas,,, I love cold turkey sandwiches on toast with butter, mayo, and lettuce... my favorite part of Thanksgiving... I have begun the task of preparing for Christmas.

I no longer want to do the big tree in the front window, decorated with tons of ornaments that have sentimental meanings, lots of brightly colored lights, and in older times, covered with tinsel.  My children are either in or near their 50's and there are no grandchildren.  All of the trees and decorations, cookies coming out of your ears, baking for days, and shopping, shopping, shopping is best done when there are eager children or grandchildren to giggle and have eyes wide in the wonder of this special Holiday Season.  But I do like to have s few festive decorations to bring the feeling of the season into the house to lighten my spirits at this time of the year.

The last few years in Parkesburg I had a 2-foot tree that remained decorated after the holidays, covered with a plastic bag until the next year.  I had found a garland that was made up of small poinsettia blooms for the three door openings, with glittery poinsettias that got clipped to the corners and bright red velvet bows tied to the ends.  I toyed with the idea of lights and decided against that idea.  They look pretty just the way they are.  Add some poinsettia placemats and either red or green tablecloths.  Easy peasy up... easy peasy down.

Last year, after moving to Fairbanks, I had to find other easy, peasy decorations as I had yet to unearth my Christmas decorations that moved from Parkesburg.  I had found some large, glittery, blingy plastic ornaments at Home Depot.  I had gotten red and gold ones, then located some red and gold glittery garland at Walmart, some LED flashing lights that had a twinkle mode, and some tall poinsettias which all fit in the front window.  We had just purchased the living room furniture for the house and it sits all along the front window, so it was the best type of decoration for this house.

I did not remove the hangers when I took them down, so this year it will be even easier to hang them up.  I will be adding a few hangers as I found smaller ornaments, similar to the ones from last year, at Costco.  I also have all of the things I remembered from Parkesburg and a few things that I uncovered that I either have not seen in years or do not remember getting at all.

I took some "before" pictures of the living room and dining room.  I will share the after pictures... well after I am done!

This is the living room from the corner of the dining room.  The plastic tub has the big ornaments that are ready to hang and the garland and lights are layered in the bottom of the tub.  Note the middle pillows.  They are newly added to the sectional.  I saw them on Facebook Marketplace.  I thought they would match but did not purchase them right away.  When they did not sell for several weeks I contacted the seller and picked them up one evening.  They are perfect and I love the look.

This is turning towards the dining room.  I had brought up a couple of items that had been found in boxes not marked 'Christmas' and not yet in another box. The poinsettias I had picked up in an order that I got from Joann's.

This is the second Holiday jigsaw puzzle.  Kate usually heads there when she is not working, or on her computer for a meeting during the days when they come to spend time with me.  This one is all Ugly Christmas Sweaters.  If she finishes it before Christmas, I have another one waiting.

This is what the puzzle will look like when it is done!

These are the decorations from last year.  They hang in the window using a fishing line, so it is almost invisible.  The garland with the lights attached is hung on the edge of the window glass so it can be seen inside and outside.

These two boxes are special Nativity sets.  One was a gift from a couple at Parkesburg Mennonite Church on the occasion of my joining the church.  Parmalle and Noah have been special friends of mine during my time as a member of that church and I cherish it.  The other was a replacement for a set that I had for many years and haven't seen in many years.  I found the new one at a thrift shop for $20.00.  I am not sure if they will all be set up.  I may end up rotating them year to year.

These are the rest of the decorations that have been unearthed.  There is still a box or two in the garage labeled 'Christmas'.There are two tubs, the long one on top is all of the Parkersburg stuff.  The one you can barely see on the bottom is a new...old... box with things I do not remember at all.  The clear tube has ornaments, the new ones, that I bought at Costco last week.  It is going to be an interesting time seeing what I still have.