'Tis the Season

Last year when the holidays were over (I guess then it was at the beginning of this (calendar) year), I decided that I would be more prepared for the Christmas season this year. I would start shopping earlier, and be more thoughtful and deliberate about gifts.

So as much as it was Thanksgiving weekend--and I have never been one of those crazy people to decorate the day after Thanksgiving--it was time to decorate. Something at least. Thanksgiving was late this year, and I won't be around next weekend, so I had to get started. I decided I didn't have to do it all at once; I could do it piecemeal. Yet even if I did get it done in one fell swoop, it's not like I have that much anyway. (Unlike Tamara and her friends and neighbors, I am not setting up beacons for Santa and his reindeer.)

So I put a holly garland around my entertainment center. I put my sequin sprigs in the vases in my bay window. I put new purple and silver glitter trees on my corner table. I put the bulbs back in the hurricane that I bought on clearance last year. But my angels are still in storage. And so is my tree. I'm trying, but I just can't get all the way there.

Honestly, I don't know how people in warm climates get ready for Christmas. It's been in the fifties in Connecticut and I'm struggling with getting in the spirit. I can't imagine decking the halls while it's 70 degrees out! I used to think we New Englanders were the lucky ones (yeah, I know, go figure: nor'easters and sub-zero wind chills make us lucky) because season changes made it easy to get into the spirit--until this year when the season seems not to want to change, and it appears we've been spoiled with mood flurries and snow days to decorate and bake cookies and write Christmas cards because there is not a flake in the forecast and tomorrow is the first of December.

Looks like this year we're going to have to find the Christmas spirit in our hearts....