Holiday decorating the way we usually do it involves a lot of effort, especially from Tom. Getting everything from our on-site storage and organizing it. Putting up the tree. Putting up the little tree (I can handle that one!). Hanging the garlands for (1) the Star Trek ornaments, (2) the Barbie ornaments, and (3) the sleigh bells. Inviting friends over to help decorate the tree, because we use A LOT of ornaments. Placing the items we hold dear throughout the house. Hanging the wreaths in the windows (which we didn’t do last year).
This year, no friends could come and exchange their decorating enthusiasm for meals. Nobody would be here to see anything but Tom and me, and Debby and Tim on actual Christmas day. It seemed like a lot of work to turn around and put it all away again. I suggested that Tom just hang the wreaths so the neighbors would see them and know we aren’t Scrooges, only realists adapting to Pandemic Christmas 2020.
The wreaths were put in place, so we were done. Only then they looked dull to me from outside, and Tom added lights. Then I was looking at the lonely front guest room. Tom and I actually call it “Lynne’s room” because when we are not in a pandemic, she’s here for a few days every month and that’s where she and Minute get cozy (as cozy as you can be in a house where four lunatic dogs bark at the break of dawn). She hasn’t been here since late February or very early March, but it’s still “Lynne’s room.”
Lynne’s room has the plaque my sister gave me last Christmas for Bee-Bee’s Truck Christmas Tree Farm.
My red trucks sit on the shelf under the window. I thought it would be fun to Christmas it up, so out came the lights, and…
MAGIC!
Then I decided Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus needed to be out, because it doesn’t seem like Christmas without Santa’s workshop.
Then Mark (a longtime blogging buddy) shared pictures on his journal of his small but so, so charming pre-lit Christmas tree. I tried to find something like it and couldn’t, but I did find one that worked for us. And this happened.
Just a hundredth of our ornaments on that little tree, but it feels a lot like Christmas around here. I’ll shoot more photos in the daylight so you can see it better.
Merry Christmas from Houndstooth Hall!
Bloody hell! If that’s a pandemic Christmas at the Hall, I’m coming over for the next non-pandemic Christmas!
Apart from which, I can see that we have a similar taste in trees!
You were my tree guru this year! And you’re welcome at the Hall any post-pandemic time. (Jack does not extend that welcome, but will be happy to snap at your ankles.)
For the first, time, in “–like ev-AR–“…
I’m not traveling for the holidays.
I put lights up on my apartment (I normally do so at my Parents’ or whoever I’m visiting for the holidays).
I bought an RGB pre-lit tree that absolutely does NOT come with an app (trojan, spyware, microphones, cameras, and for some reason cloud storage)
A tree: just for me, myself and I. I’m only playing with the light colours this year. I want sparkle!
Bah humbug to ye, virus.
Stay healthy
PS-
The crazy character substitution in my previous comment feels like an invasion of M$ Word. Oh that stupid double dash turning into a really long line, the sixty-six not being paired with a ninety-nine, the triple dot turning into a single character, and so on. Those kinds of things were the bane of my college and graduate years when M$ Word for the Mac was blatantly designed to be impossible to work with M$ Word for Windows. Whenever auto-correct decided it wanted tofix wordsit thoughti typedwrong, they ended up missing a space betwixt them in Windows XP for word files I had written on a Mac. Pathetic Clipy! Pathetic! Go to your room! Disabling all that auto-correct crap was two, sometimes three-fold, just to have compatibility between operating systems in various computer labs all over campus. Oh those days of obnoxious office word processing warfare!
I wish you a VERY VERY sparkly and merry Christmas. =)
I love the lights!
Thank you! I’d have lights up all year if I could, but I guess the holidays wouldn’t be as festive then.