"That's tacky", Kevin said.
"I dunno; if I was into lighting up things, I'd do it that way."
"It's boring," he insisted.
"Boring? That is the furthest thing from boring on this whole stretch of road!"
"It's all one color," he continued.
"Oh...... you like the color lights,"
He gave me a look that said "Is there any other lights besides the color ones?"
But instead he said: "You know, when I was a kid" (I get these 'when I was a kid' speeches from him once in a while. He is 13 years older than me. I also get the 'up NORTH we....' fill in the blank.)
"When I was a kid, all we had were the colored ones.......and if we lit things up at our house, I'd use every color I could buy and make it interesting."
"But THAT is tacky!" I said. "When I was growing up, we did all one color or the other. Mixing colors up in a big jumble is what is tacky."
"Oh."
"Besides, it doesn't matter, does it? We don't put lights all over our house and yard anyway, so why are we even having this conversation?"
"Right - were NOT putting lights on the house..........."
I got to thinking about it, though. I think sometimes I take Christmas way too serious. Could part of the fun of Christmas be being just a little tacky? So I might not put inflated snowmen and Santas all over my yard and put lights on every square inch of my house. MY version of Christmas "Tacky" is singing along to "Faliz Navidad" on the radio, or "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree," or all of those miserable holiday songs on they play; or when I put a jingle bell collar on my kitties, or when I broke down last year and bought a set of - are you ready for this? - a strand of lights with real shotgun shell covers. Yeah; I did. For my husband, because I knew he would love that.
ANYWAY: I guess I said all that as a prologue to the actual subject of this post: Christmas Decorating began this weekend at the Blanchard Farmhouse! We have to wait another week or so for the tree, as our baby is a rather hyper baby, and will more than likely tear into the tree with a single purpose: shred everything on it and use it for a jungle gym. (I am, of course, referring to our newest addition to the household, or kitten, Phileppe.)
We do decorate in a very old-fashioned "country" way; with no lights on the house or shrubbery; only the tree. I go to nature for my decorations: greenery, berries, twigs, pine cones, grapevine, moss, etc. Than I add other textures and elements to my decor: velvet ribbons and bows; trinkets, objects, groupings, linens, china, sliver pieces, etc.
So I hung my wreath; which I love. Pine cones, dried flowers; berries
Later in the month, I will make a real one from evergreen clippings, and make my garland at the same time. I love using real evergreen garland all over the house. I often mix in magnolia and boxwood. (I'll post pics of how I do it when I do.)
Then I got really inspired. I found this website/blog called Sugar Pie Farmhouse. I. LOVE.THIS.SITE. Anything having to do with "farmhouse", "farm wife", or "farm girls", I am going to love, and this is a doosey. She had a post this week with her pics of her Christmas decor and I loved the red and white theme! I am loving Red as an accent color these days. So this picture really cranked my tractor:
And I decided to do my own version. First, I decided to make my pine cones snowy. And since we never get any SNOW around here, (like some people who live in an unnamed city up in the Shenandoah Valley, that are all smug about their snow this weekend, who shall remain nameless....... you know who you are........:) )I had to get creative:
I did this project out at the wood pile, in case you didn't notice. Once the pine cones were all snowy, I rummaged in the pantry for two enamelware pans I had bought at the thrift store for less than $5. Mouhahahahaha
Then I rummaged around in my loft attic room where I thought I remembered I stashed a bunch of red ball ornaments I got for 1/2 price last year, for about $2.50. Mouahahahahahaha
I added a little fresh cedar clippings and ta da! my own version of the Sugar Pie Farmhouse arrangement. Me likey.
Then I had a lot of fun with some glass glitter and some leftover stuff from our wedding; which I will post about later.
Now I am all pumped about getting a tree.... maybe we will cut one fresh this year instead of resorting to Home Depot? We'll see. Any way about it, it is going to be interesting with our cat rearranging it every day for us........
Deck them halls, Y'all! Whoo hoo!
3 comments:
I LOVE the arrangement! By the way, when you have kids, the feeling about "tacky" celebratory style will totally change. Now, things that are pink and glittery actually attract me, not because I like them, but because of the look on Violet's face of pure adoration when SHE sees them! I went from a carefully-themed, perfectly-matched birthday party last year for her second birthday, with hand-painted "red, ripe strawberry, big hungry bear" invitations....to pink sprinkled cupcakes and construction-paper-wrapped gifts this year. :) Side note: I always hated colored lights for Christmas, too, but guess what kind of lights we bought last year, for our first tree as a family with a two-year-old? And guess why we did it? :)
So fun.
I raise my hand and admit we are a family that puts lights all over the house. Don feels it's his Christmas duty to see that it's done and Christmas just isn't right until it is. We use multi color. BUT, Don is really hip to this whole process cause he will only use the lights with the white plastic wiring so as to match the house. Funny guy.
Sounds like you are really enjoying yourself. ;)
"If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good."
Dr. Seuss
I have to agree with you about the tackiness. It seems that every year people try and see how many tacky decorations they can fit on the outside of their house. :P I truly enjoy simplicity in decorations and agree with you about getting inspiration from nature. There are so many beautiful things out in the woods just waiting to beautify our homes!
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