Halloween Decorations.

Not mine; the cross-street neighbors...  They really decorate for holidays.

 The picture isn't great.  My camera doesn't do well with little bright lights at night from a distance.  But you can get the general idea.  There are strings of small orange lights all around.  There are 2 large inflatable pumpkins upper left.  The bluish thing on the right is the head of a witch (otherwise draped in black).  The upper middle thing is a ghost.  The white light is just their sidewalk lamp.

I'm just going to put a regular pumpkin (carved with a cat face) on the front steps along with 4 small orange Mums I found cheap at Walmart.  I'm just doing that for neighborhood friendliness.  Kids don't do "trick or treating" anymore (around here at least).

I haven't had a knock at my door for almost 15 years.  Actually, I almost never see kids playing outside at all.  I know they exist here because when I am working in the front yard, I see the parents getting them into cars to take them hither and yon...  But they don't play outside.  I suppose outside (or "trick or treating") is just consider to dangerous these days.

I bet if you asked a kid about kickball or tag, they wouldn't even know what you were referring to.  But that's really a subject for a future post.

But anyway, I always have a box of Lindt truffles around for an occasional treat, so if some kid did knock on the door at Halloween, I can oblige...

Xmas Holiday 2018

Most of these pictures are also on Mark's Mews, so these are more to mention the decoration details...

I put tension rods at the top and bottom inside of the front windows and just use clips to hold regular light strings.  And they are each on a timer.

I've collected many very nice ornaments over the years.

The bird nests may be my favorite.  The nests are real (collected, cleaned, and preserved after use).  The eggs are wood.  The apples are glass.  I've had both those kinds for decades.

The tree is brand new.  I liked that that it is pre-lighted and table-sized.  The better 7' one is just too much to handle sometimes.  And not pre-lighted.    

Mom sent me this wall-hanging 20-something years ago.  It makes a perfect under-tree mat.  Mom often sent me arty decorations.  She WAS "artsy-crafty".  But, sometimes her stories of their origins (made vs bought) varied from year to year, LOL!  Dear Mom...

And the wide view of the decorated room.  And, yes, that stocking is really my childhood one.  I note that the other side has a niece's name written on it though, so it got re-purposed for a while...  When I was a child, Santa would fill it with rare treats (for the 1950s).  A navel orange, a red delicious apple, a box of chocolate-covered cherries, a small jar of maraschino cherries,  and usually a couple of little toys (a top or a set of specialized cards for Go Fish or Crazy 8s, etc).  Ahhh, memories...

Some years, I don't decorate.  This year I did, and found an enjoyment in it.  Next year, I may drag out the Big Tree and really decorate it.  There are so many decorations that won't fit on a small tree.  I must have 100 glass icicles, for example.  My cardinals are too big for a small tree, and some are just too heavy for a small tree.

Here's a picture of the big tree from 2014, and even then I didn't decorate it fully...

One of the cardinals...

And a special decoration from Mom.  It was a house-warming present 32 years ago.  In case it isn't obvious, it's a mailbox (representing my first, and only, own house).

HAPPY WINTER HOLIDAYS TO ALL MY FRIENDS

The Decorations Up Close

 It's not your usual tree...

Well, lets see the close-ups of the ones I used this year...  The cardinals always have to be there.  I love Cardinals. 

A general view of one side of the tree.

The bird nests are favorites.  And yes, those are real bird nests.  The eggs are painted wood.  

I love my apples.  They are at least 40 years old. 

I didn't even remember these.   Glass pine cones all covered in glitter!

A view of another side of the tree.

A glass hummingbird.  I have 6 of pairs of colors.  I LOVE those.

And of course, what is a tree without a cat?  This is an old decoration from Mom.  I think there used to be buttons for eyes that got replaced when she (Mom) was young, by ink.  I hope to pass this one (and others) along some day.

The Tree

Start To Finish...  And a long one; as someone said, "grab a beverage", LOL...

I was initially discouraged by all the branch and stem and twig adjustments needed.  It sat there with just the base opened for a week (I seem to have lost THAT picture sadly).  I dithered about returning it and buying a real tree, the amount of work to adjust all the ends was daunting, but adding all the lights to a real tree is no great fun either.

It seemed so balanced either way... 

But my earliest jobs required a lot of repetitive work, and I WAS good at that, so I considered managing all those bendy branches from a repetition work point of view.  They were assembled in a way, they must open in a way.  I found a pattern.  The internal branches go "left, right, up, down" just to fill in the background.  Its not like you are going to hang ornaments next to the trunk of the tree.

So I just started spreading the tightly packed stems and twigs.  The instructions said "10 minutes and you have a lovely tree".  HAH, HAH, HAH!  But 3 hours and I did!   just had to actually stnd there and DO IT.  The biggest annoyance and time-waster, was that the outer "new-season" twigs were flat on one side and full on the other, and they were almost always upside down.  Easier for the poor people constructing the trees I assume, but poor quality-control at the end of the production line.  I'll bet I had to turn over 1,000 stem-ends.  But only once.  Next year, I won't have to.

It helped to wear thin "driving gloves".  Those plastic needles can wear on you after a while.

So it was a good-looking tree after all the set-up.  It looks better than I expected, actually.

Then I turned on the built-in LED lights...  WOW!

With camera flash...

With slow-synchro camera flash...

With camera flash OFF.  The lights really shine that way.  And it looks the same with the room lights off.

And decorated!!!   With flash on...

And off...

Hmmm. ..  Didn't notice that one cardinal was fallen over...  Well, everything can't stay perfect.

I love real trees for the smell and reality.  And you don't have to arrange the branches.  And I'm not sure tree farms harm the environment.  They produce oxygen.  And I know one cat who survived under them until finding a Forever Home...

But fake trees have advantages too.  One lasts for a decade or so, they have 1,000s of built-in LED lights, they don't require watering so they are safer.  And in theory, they can fold up "OK" with the branches spread (but folded up, if that makes sense).  Well, let's just say it wouldn't fit back in the box, but it will take up less space than as currently spread out.  All the branches are on hinges.

I always hate to say this, given my general sarcasm to "Martha Stewartism" but this IS a Martha Stewart Tree...  (According to the box and I didn't know that at the time).  All I knew at the time was that it was a pretty realistic-looking fake tree...

But what finally decided me on keeping the one I bought was that the branches are sturdier than real trees and I have a lot of rather heavy ornaments.  Ornaments that I could not keep hung on real trees stay on this one.

But I have a lot of very light ornaments too.  So I think I will alternate between live trees and this one.  Best balance I can make.

Tomorrow, close ups of the decorations...  I forgot to use the macro setting and they were all blurry up close.  So I need to take new pictures.

But the close-ups are great, so tune in tomorow.

Holiday Tree

I should have known not to buy an artificial Holiday Tree!  I don't like artificial things all that much.  And I didn't even go shopping to get one.  I was at a DIY store to buy furnace filters weeks ago, and there were all these nice-looking artificial trees so nicely decorated.  Two thoughts came to mind.

First, I recalled memories of younger days with the family decorating the tree, and I thought a nice artificial one would be "satisfactory", convenient, and cost-effective over the years.

Secondly, I had had to empty the attic a few months ago to have the attic sealed and additional insulation sprayed in, so I had all these boxes of Holiday decorations stacked up in the cat room.  The decorations were on my list of things to keep or donate.

So I was looking at the trees in the store and thinking of the all the decorations I'd collected over the years and ON IMPULSE I bought an artificial tree.  Impulse purchases are not my habit, but by definition "impulse" is not planned.

I opened the box today, and it was NOT what I expected.  I EXPECTED a box of a dozen or so stacking rings of perfectly formed branches that would be ready to go with a simple plug-in (and me adding special ornaments and my bubble-lights.  Foolish me!

Instead, there are only 3 sections (of branches that DO hinge down, to be fair).  But each branch is as tightly squeezed into a tube-like shape as wrapping paper.  Each individual stem and twig has to be bent out into a realistic shape.  A quick estimate suggested there would be 100 branches of about 20 stems per branch and 20 twigs per branch (= 40,000 if you really do it right).

A sample branch of the middle section took 2 minutes to make look realistic.  So, 2 minutes times 100 branches = 200 minutes (or 3 hours and 20 minutes).  And adding in some time for discomfort caused by handling the prickly plastic needles, hand-cramps from all that bending of stems and twigs, and back-cramps from being bent over and around reaching them, I decided that was more than I wanted to do in order to have a Holiday Tree!

I re-evaluated my concerns over killing live trees.  I guess if I am perfectly willing to have chickens and turkeys raised just for the purpose of being killed for my eating pleasure, I can stand having a real tree grown and cut down for my decorating pleasure.  At least trees just use sunlight and produce oxygen.

Hey, I can rationalize my decisions with the best of them, LOL!

That's IF I get a real cut tree...  I probably will, but it's not definite tonight.  I haven't bought one for a decade, so there may be sticker-shock involved.  I have to think about this.

Its not like there are children or visitors who would see my tree.  But it HAS been years since I decorated and I DO have all the boxes of decorations out of the attic already.  And none of the cats has ever experienced a real tree in the house and that might be interesting.  Skeeter and LC (and the cats who came before) always seemed to enjoy them.

I could justify buying a real tree just for the cats, I suppose...  Hmm, yeah, that could work.  A tree just for the cats.  And they wouldn't mind if I decorated it with cheap plastic ornaments at the bottom where they could reach to whap them.  They'd LIKE that...  I'll put the "good" stuff higher up.

And the birds would like it too.  I used to dig a hole in the backyard to set the tree in after I was done with it inside.  The tree leaves a bare spot under it even when it snows and the birds LOVE picking at the seeds I toss under it.  I had almost forgotten about that.

So, well of course, I'm not buying a live dead tree for ME, I'm doing it for the cats and then the birds.  What could POSSIBLY be more noble?

Oh my goodness!  I better go shopping for a real tree ASAP.  The cats are waiting, and the birds will be happier into the New Year, and the New Year is something to celebrate too...

Mark