decorating – Page 2 – Sweat & Sparkle

She Should Be Here

The first day of fall may not officially arrive until September 22, but for me, September 1st is the kick-off for fall decorating, fall clothes, fall everything. I spent about two hours on Sunday, pulling out boxes of pumpkins and sunflowers, winding leaf garland around the porch railing, draping the front door in maple leaves, swapping the flowery blue wreath with the autumn-worthy orange and yellow one.

My husband had gotten me a set of blue metal pumpkins that light up. I saw them in a store and admired them, but I decided I have too many decorations already and didn’t buy them. My husband went back and bought two of them. I love them and wanted them to be the focal point on our fireplace mantle, so I put those up first.

At one point, with three boxes of decorations open and everything scattered across the living room, the dining room table, and the kitchen counter, it looked like the fall section of Hobby Lobby exploded in our house. One by one, I placed each piece where I wanted it, and it slowly came together. When I was done, I stepped back to admire my work.

My husband said this year’s decorations are the best I’ve ever done. If I may so myself, I have to agree. I took a few pictures, inside and outside. Later, as I sat on the couch to go through the pictures, I suddenly had to catch my breath.

Every year, for as long as I can remember, I sent pictures of our decorations to my mom. She was always big on decorations when my brothers and I were growing up, and she liked adding to our displays, like sending me items to add to the mantle. My routine every year was decorate, take pictures, send them to Mom.

And now I can’t. I still love fall, and I still love decorating, but these past two years have not taken the sting out of not being able to share this with my mom anymore. She will never see this best year yet. The decorations will get taken down, packed away, put back up next year, the year after that, and she won’t see any of them.

I hadn’t said anything, but it must have been written all over my face. My husband was suddenly at my side, silently, his hand on my arm. I didn’t cry, like I did the first fall without her. But it didn’t hurt any less.

Fall will always be this mixed bag of emotions now. I love fall, and it’s my favorite season. My mom loved it too. She would get so excited when the days got cooler, and she could leave the windows open and enjoy the crisp day. I feel the same way, a sense of happy anticipation, not even sure for what exactly, that accompanies that first chilly breeze. Her dying right before she got to enjoy one more first cool breeze seems so unfair to me and will always bother me.

It was pushing 100 degrees this past weekend when I decorated our home for fall, but later this week, our temperatures will finally take a dip. Fall in the south just isn’t the same, but I adore it anyway.

Fall makes me miss my mom even more, like I am enjoying something that she should be sharing with me but is missing. She should be here. She should be calling me to tell me how delightful the day felt today at her house. She should be here so I can send these pictures to her, and so she can tell me how much she likes them, so she can make suggestions and maybe send a little package in the mail later, something for me to add to the collection, something from her.

I love fall, with all my heart, but it also leaves me aching. She should be here.

Our Tree

A rainy December weekend is the perfect chance to put up the Christmas tree! It’s quite the undertaking in our house. We take our tree very seriously.

We pulled down boxes of ornaments from shelves and got to work. It takes a while, because we don’t have any of those pre-packaged boxes of matched ornament sets. No, our ornaments have been collected over the past 17 years together, plus ornaments from my husband’s mom, as well as ornaments we had before we got married and joined decorating forces.

One example is an ornament I made in sewing class in high school. It’s a teddy bear wearing a Santa hat, and while I believe it is a fine piece of impeccable stitchery, my little brother joked long ago that it bears a stronger resemblance to a dog than a teddy bear. (My husband agrees). What do they expect from a bear who is at least 30 years old?

Each ornament is wrapped in bubble wrap or tissue paper in several boxes, and they are unwrapped one at a time and placed on the tree. It’s fun unwrapping them, not knowing which one it is at first. I hand him the ornaments from his mom so he can have the honor of deciding their places on our tree. I have ornaments from my mom that make me want to smile and cry at the same time. I trust that, over time, it will gradually be more smile than cry.

We have ornaments that each of the kids picked out way back when my husband and I first met. I still remember being at the store, watching the kids circle multiple Christmas trees and select their own ornament. They were so small back then.

When we travel, we have started picking up ornaments where we can, like one we got at the beach this past summer. It’s been waiting patiently on a shelf for its turn on the tree. We have personalized ornaments from the zoo, and we still laugh at our inside joke about me accidentally calling a hippo ornament a rhino (hey, in my defense, they were carved out of wood and a bit indistinct).

One year, I had the idea to buy a bunch of tiny red bows and attach them to the ends of the Christmas tree branches. My husband loved it and said the tree looks so beautiful with the red bows, so it’s become part of the decorating tradition. The original bows are slowly wearing out and falling apart, so I have bought more to replace them as the old ones are retired. It takes forever to place them on the tree, but he’s right: it’s so damn pretty when they are all on the tree.

When we finished our tree yesterday and turned on the lights, we just stood in front of it for a moment, admiring it. I’m glad we put it up early enough to have a few weeks to enjoy it. I am already looking forward to many evenings of snuggling in the living room with my husband, the only light in the room being the gentle glow from the tree…and debating where we can possibly fit another ornament!

Don’t Skip Thanksgiving

It happens every year, but it still tremendously irks me. Even before Halloween decorations have been taken down, stores stampede to toss Christmas trees and wreaths and flashing lights over every square inch like gaudy confetti, and they urge you to shop, shop, shop until you’re exhausted (and broke).

In the middle of it all, completely forgotten, pushed aside, ignored once again, is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a quieter, more sedated, low-key holiday. I love Halloween, and we go all-out with our decorations. Although we don’t get nearly as elaborate with Thanksgiving decorations, I still have a soft spot for this holiday.

I like the idea of slowing down for a moment, taking time to reflect on what we might otherwise take for granted: people, family, jobs, pets, love, anything and everything that makes us smile or brings happiness to our lives. It’s important to acknowledge that and to make sure others know we appreciate them, and to remind ourselves of all that we have.

I look around our home, the yard that my husband and I put so much into, and I remember how hard we worked to find a place we both fell in love with. I see all the changes we have made to put our personal touch on it, make it ours. I am grateful not only for all of that, but for finding my true partner in the first place to do all of this with.

For years, this holiday has meant traveling up north to spend a few days with my mom in my childhood home, and hopefully seeing my brothers, too. It still stings that I won’t be seeing my mom anymore, but I can’t stay trapped in the sadness and loss. My mom liked to decorate too, especially when my brothers and I were still little, and some of the Thanksgiving decorations in my home now were once hers. It means a lot to me to place them where I can see them and feel just a little bit closer to her.

I don’t like the frantic, thoughtless, mad rush straight to Christmas, as if Thanksgiving is a nothing holiday that doesn’t matter. Today, to be honest, it means more than ever. The more people bury their faces in cell phones, the more we need direct, human-to-human, genuine contact. The more people prize material things and inanimate objects, the more we need to emphasize the value of friends, family, loved ones. The more people immerse themselves in artificial interactions on social media, the more we desperately need neighbors, conversations, families telling stories, meaningful connections and authentic relationships.

So yes, I know Christmas is coming, and I don’t hate or reject Christmas. But a holiday focused on gratitude, thankfulness, and family should not be skipped over in the haste to get to presents and Santa Claus. Each year, it seems that Thanksgiving dims more and more, and each year, it seems like we need it even more than ever.

Protected: Halloween Pictures

Halloween Night

I adore Halloween. I loved the flimsy, plastic costumes and stuffy masks as a kid in the 70s, the parade at school to show off our costumes, then trick-or-treating with my brothers around our neighborhood. As an adult, Halloween still holds so much magic and imagination and excitement.

My husband loves Halloween too. I decorate the inside of the house, but I let him take over the yard. We collect more characters and props and additions each year, and soon we will need a separate shed just for Halloween decorations! Our front yard is transformed into a cemetery, with skeleton pallbearers, zombies bursting from the ground, and even playful skeleton dogs and puppies, with bony spiders dropping from tree branches.

People driving by stop to take a closer look, and I have lost count of how many people have told us they love our Halloween decorations. It’s a lot of work, and my husband puts a lot of thought and time into it. Every year, it turns out magnificent.

I can’t wait to get home this evening to celebrate our favorite holiday together. My husband always saves the grand finale of decorations for Halloween night, and then we wait for brave trick-or-treaters to make their way through the tombstones to the front porch, lit by an eerily flickering lamp. Once the kids have all gone with their candy, we can focus on the best part of the night: each other.

Happy Halloween!