Holiday Tree

 I always debate (to myself) each December shall it be the big tree fully-decorated or the little one.  Usually the little one.  It's just easier and (placed properly) looks like the top of a big one (from outside).

But it HAS been a few years.  I might to the full decoration of  the big fake tree.  I have some decorations I haven't seen for many years.  

Little one from a couple years ago...

Big one from years past...

Some details of the ornaments...

I had forgotten how festive a house can look at times...

But the big one takes a lot of effort, and no one sees it but me.  Still, sometimes you just want to go full-out.  And I think it seems right this year...

I think I might go full-out this year and do both.  The big one for myself and the small one for the cats.  I went to Petsmart yesterday and found a pack of 10 small mice.  I can attach hooks into them.  I can't really sew worth a damn, but I do have the basic stuff.  I can push a heavy-duty carpet needle through each mouse and attach carpet thread and attach a hook.    

Wouldn't that be a lovely decoration for the little 2' cat tree?  Tiny LEDS lights and mosies hanging from the treem.  Under which to put Secret Paw gifts...

Sometimes, you just feel like decorating.  Just for even yourself.

A Chistmas Bulb

Everyone who grew up with Christmas as a Winter holiday has special Christmas memories.  I got lots of things as gifts as a child.

But today, I am remembering something of Dad's memories.  There used to be Christmas lights that had individual bulbs.  When I was a child, Dad had one from his own childhood.  It was a Santa Head.  It was oval, but had specific wrinkles in the beard and slightly raised eyes.  I can't even imagine how such things were made.

But, back then, the bulbs were all incandescent (with heated wire filaments that glowed for you young'uns).  They burned out regularly, causing the entire string to go dark.  Such bulbs typically lasted only a few years.

Well, Dad had this one Santa Head bulb that he cherished.  It just kept working.  Sometimes it took some tapping.  If you tapped old fimament bulbs, sometimes the heated ends would re-connect.  Some years, the bulb wouldn't light and Dad would keep tapping it in all directions.  And most years, it would light up again.

There came a day when it just didn't.  He spent time for days tapping at it on a light string he had in the basement for repairing stuff.  Finally, he understood it wasn't going to light up again.  I was probably about 12 then, and I wasn't there when he gave up trying to get the Santa bulb to light up "one more time".  But I noticed it sitting on his home desk for weeks.  And then, one day, it wasn't there.

When you are a child, you don't really understand your parents as having been children themselves once.  You just know them as "adults"  I think that, on the day I noticed the bulb missing from his desk, I understood that he had lost a precious childhood memory.  And maybe I grew up a little that day.

I found this image today.

It looks like the same one.  Memory says it is the same one.  Dad died in 2014.  When I brought him here to live with me in 2012, he might have remembered it, but he went downhill fast.  I wish I had thought to find and given it to him while he was here "compos mentis"...

Xmas Decorations

I finally boxed up my Xmas decorations today.  Yay!!!

It's not as bad as it may seem.  You see, I had them in all sorts of odd boxes and I wanted to rearrange them into a few identically-sized ones.  And by type.  OK, I got a bit obsessive about it.

Like, what goes with a 20 pound enameled steel tree stand?  I had door-sized ribbons, large bubble-lights, plastic 2' candy canes, a WHOLE lot of glass pine cones/icicles/snowflakes, bird nests with wooden eggs, etc, etc, etc.

And trying to use identical-sized boxes as I mentioned.

Well, I did it.  And here's the cool thing.  I took 2' along the wall of the cat's room (they are OK with that, I asked first) a few years ago and installed a pipe up near the ceiling.  And hung shower curtains exactly that height on the pipe.  I even store the vacuum cleaners and such behind there.

Looks great.  The Xmas boxes are all packed in (stack perfectly).  Done...  They are packed so nicely, I might not even decorate next Xmas...  ;)  Its the thought that counts, right?