Christmas Police

I am not knitting for Christmas this year.  I am not baking.  I am not planning on anything above and beyond the yuletide season.   And even so, I am feeling the holiday spirit coming on strong.  I feel liberated by the pressure I usually feel when I put myself to tasks.  Don’t get me wrong, knitting hats for everyone in my extended family in 2005 felt good, and exciting, and very rewarding.  But I think the pressure to make something extraordinary out of December twenty-fifth can dampen some of the jovial mood.  And so, my gift to myself this year is to not fall into that trap of feeling like I “have to” do something.  If I feel like knitting, or baking, then I will.  If I do not, then I will not.

 

So imagine my surprise, with my devil-may-care attitude towards Christmas this year, when the spirit hit me big time.  I was only too excited to get Joseph up on a ladder to get the lights up.  And that’s when we got hit with a citation from The Christmas Police.  My neighbor’s mother has a strict “nothing Christmas before Thanksgiving” policy.  So, my younger neighbors were worried about our violation, and indeed, under threat of having our lights stripped from us if we violated this rule again, we staved off further decorating.  You cannot cross the Christmas police.  We have the citation on our refrigerator to remind us of this fact. 

 

But Thanksgiving passed, as it always does.  I brought out our old, tried-and-true, four-and-a-half foot Martha Stewart pre-lit Christmas tree from the garage.  I will be having no disastrous experiments like last year!  On Sunday (yes, Christmas Police, the Sunday after Thanksgiving!) I pulled together my ornaments and set to work decorating our fake little tree. 

 

I wanted to put every ornament we own on it when I pulled out the Christmas box, but I had new ornaments that I wanted to show off to best advantage.  So I put nostalgia aside, and decorated our tree with a silver ribbon, the silver balls, the teal balls, and even a couple of gold balls so I could show off the blue butterfly ornaments Joseph bought for me at Wally World.  But I thought the tree could use some warmth, so I set myself an impromptu craft project.

 

I cut random star shapes out of a paper bag and glued them on a long piece of brown yarn.  This I used as a garland, and wrapped it in a zigzag across our tree front.  And I made a large star for the top of our tree using stars cut from the same paper bag, glued together for solidarity, and attached to a toilet paper roll which fits the top of our tree brilliantly.  I added a touch of blue glitter to the top star so it would stand out a little. 

 

I probably could have used a template for my stars, or taken more time on the topper, but I am glad I didn’t.  It came together very quickly without me worrying about details, and the organic look of the stars keeps the tree from looking too processed.  This is no small feat for a fake tree to look anything but over-processed.  I love how our little tree looks.  And I guess I’m the only guy I need to impress. 

I am pleased to say that I already have presents under the tree.  I am also a little miffed that someone has already bought things for me to put under the tree when that same someone hasn’t even told me we had money to shop for each other this year.  But I digress. 

The Holidays are here!  And Christmas is right around the corner!  So how is your decorating going?