The holiday season is one of our favorite times of the year. We get to have lots of friends and family around, cook delicious goodies, and take a few extra days off work. We also enjoy pulling out the decorations, putting up the tree, and setting the table with our holiday dishes. Okay, so maybe that last one is more up my alley than Ed’s, but he indulges me my pretty table.
Because Yuletide is only a few days away, we’ve put the final touches on the bathroom on hold to enjoy sitting around the tree, eating goodies, watching holiday movies, and visiting with family. And I thought I’d let you know what this season looks like at our house.
First and foremost, we have the tree. It is always real. Always. And, so far, it has always been a Douglas Fir. Yes, they lose their needles more than a Fraser Fir, but I think they’re prettier, so we just sweep a lot. You can’t beat the smell of a real tree, and they’re generally accepted to be better for Earth and human health than fake trees. We like that, so we buy real.
Our tree looks pretty much the same every year. Lots of traditional-looking ornaments, small colored lights, large colored lights (i.e., Charlie Brown lights), and a big bow on top.
It isn’t exactly the same every year though. When we got married, we decided we would buy one ornament each year to add to the tree. It’s an economical way to add ornaments over time, and it will be a nice time capsule down the road when we’ve been married 20+ years or so. This is our fourth Christmas together (married), so we just picked out our fourth ornament.
And the others we’ve picked over the years.
We also set out the holiday dishes. True to our taste for the classic ornaments, we have the classic holiday pattern: Christmas Tree by Spode.
This pattern has been in production since 1938 and is what we opted to register for instead of china when we got married. Over the past few years, we’ve acquired quite a few pieces, and they set such a pretty table.
We have a few other places throughout the house where we add a little holiday spirit. This year we’ve been busy with the bathroom remodel, so some our regular decorations didn’t make it out, but we still managed to sneak in a few things.
We also keep the mantel decorations the same year after year: stockings, red and green candles, and scrap greenery from tree trimmings. When we buy our tree every year, I just ask for the scraps they have trimmed off the bottoms of trees when they make the fresh cut to the stump. It’s free and gives us decorations we don’t have to store in the house all year long. I usually get enough to drape on the mantel and to make a few swags around the house.
The stockings have a little history. The white one with the Santa Claus is mine from childhood. This sweet older lady, Mrs. Shaw, who lived next door, crocheted that when I was 9 or 10. I’ve had it ever since. Just in case it isn’t clear in the picture, the Santa and little tree are 3-D. It’s really a work of art in my book. Ed’s is the blue one. I bought it for him our first Christmas together when we were dating. It was cheap and definitely isn’t unique, but it reminds me of that first Christmas together.
Dru and Ripley also have stockings that hang on the bookshelf. They get a small dog treat in them on Christmas morning. Digging the treat out of the stocking (and then slobbering all over the stocking) = the best day ever in their book.
So this is what Yuletide looks like around our house. Well, all of this and then us in our pajamas watching lots of TV or reading by the tree. We hope you and your family are enjoying the holiday season as much as we are.
Happy holidays, everyone!
