If These Floors Could Talk: Holiday Decorating

Hello Darling,

We started decorating the house for Christmas before Thanksgiving. Usually I am that person who insists on waiting until Black Friday to break out the trees (because I am a Turkey Baby after all and we can’t just skip Thanksgiving)….that is until this year.

This year it felt like Christmas needed to come early for many reasons, one of which was my husband not being home yet from hip replacement surgery. I wanted him to come home to a cozy and decorated house.

We’ve accumulated a lot of Christmas decorations since moving in together to our first apartment. The first and last year we had a real tree was in our first apartment together. We loved having a real tree but the aftermath was a bear. I was cleaning pine needles out for months!

We were on a budget and got most of the lights and ornaments to decorate with from Walmart and still use them now.

When we moved to our second apartment, we had a fireplace to decorate, so of course we added stocking holders and a fake tree to our collection. With those vaulted ceilings at the apartment, we got a taller tree and it was beautiful. But the poor tree didn’t stand a chance against Otis who chewed through the pre-strung lights rendering them completely useless. I have to admit though, it’s the same tree we use now in our living room. The branches are still sturdy, the base holds strong and it still looks good.

After all this time, Otis’ favorite part of the Christmas decorating is still that tree. He uses it to scratch his back with the low hanging branches. He’ll sit with it on the floor before we assemble it and sleeps under it daily.

Before we had gotten our house, our focus of decorating had always just been the tree. But with such a big house, it felt necessary to spread the jolly look around. Each year I buy a few new pieces to decorate with. The first year I got more stockings for the fireplaces, a rope light that is white and red striped to go around our banister in the foyer and ornaments for the tree.

The next year, I expanded more by purchasing a few Christmas themed artworks from Kirklands (my all time favorite décor store) and got a great deal at Belks on two fake trees that sit on the front porch.

This year, we purchased garland to place above the built-ins in the living room and the cabinets in the kitchen, as well as on the fireplaces. We found a new tree for our spare room off the kitchen that has multi-color lights which have different pre-lit settings for glimmering or flashing and a few more small niche decorations.. We also had more items gifted to us to help us really round out our décor. We were gifted outdoor Christmas lights, garland and two tall trees for our foyer and my mother-in-law gifted us her Christmas plates for future dinner parties.

Around the holidays, I spend a lot of time reminiscing on the traditions I had with my grandmother. I miss those moments, I miss her, but as life continues, new traditions are made. I cherish the holidays, the birthdays, the smallest milestones, all because of her. Life is never guaranteed a timeframe and she taught me that.

While we aren’t able to celebrate Christmas with our entire extended family and friends this year, we aren’t giving up on the holiday cheer.

Until Next Time,

M.E.

The Foyer