Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!

In case you haven’t been keeping track, it’s only a week until Christmas. I maintain that the Christmas season can start no earlier than the weekend following Thanksgiving. Much to my dismay, Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier every year, some of my neighbors starting their lights shortly after Halloween. The greatest trespass this year, though, was committed by the local radio station that plays Christmas music 24-7 throughout the Christmas season. However, they started playing their music a week before Thanksgiving! The nerve!!

Thanksgiving weekend, my family takes all of the boxes of Christmas stuff down from the attic. It used to be that we would unpack things together, but in recent years, it’s become more of a whirlwind of Mom trying to unpack everything she can as quickly as possible in order to put the empty boxes back in the attic posthaste. The first few things up for the holidays are the Advent lawn stakes, the Nativity scene (which, as a child, I called an “activity scene”), and mom’s nutcrackers.

My mom loves nutcrackers. My dad hates them. He’s actually rather creeped out by them. I probably like them because of The Nutcracker, not going to lie. I know that it’s a bit of a twisted fairytale, but I always enjoyed the ballet. I suspect that my sister likes them mostly because she and I can prank Dad with them; every year we try to think of a new way to sneakily ambush him with a nutcracker.

 Dad's least favorite nutcracker, sporting a string on which three mini nutcrackers hang. In the background, you can see (pardon the paperwork materials, haha) two nutcrackers that are at least two and a half feet tall. This room has ten more nutcrackers not pictured. Poor Dad.

Other decorations include Christmas bathroom and kitchen accessories (my favorite being the angel-themed downstairs bathroom), the traditional tree and wreath, and the lights. I always forget how good fresh pine smells in cold air; it’s the slightly ticklish menthol-esque kind of aromatic that chills the back of your throat even though you’re inhaling through your nose. Beautiful.

I’m  extremely torn about the types of lights I prefer, though I have a few ideas to narrow it down: steadily-lit, strand lights in moderation. Something about icicle lights rub me the wrong way, probably because the houses in my area have never and will never sport icicles. Ever. I love colorful lights, the type of colors you’d find in the standard Crayola packets you might be handed in a restaurant with a kids menu: red, blue, green, and yellow, and even orange or white. Our Christmas tree sports the little multi-colored lights, and so does our back fence; the tree has a more colorful spectrum (someone sprung for the pack of crayons with pink, which is fine by me, and thrilling according to pre-school me). Out front, the lower eaves and the front windows sport larger bulbs which I find delightfully traditional.

Several years ago, I despised white lights. They were everywhere and so painfully boring. However, in recent years I have rethought and figure that they are classic. Not to mention, the colors don’t fade. Still, I prefer them to stay wrapped around outdoor trees. The main area surrounding our city’s civic center sports upwards of thirty trees all with trunks wrapped in white lights. It’s really quite stunning.

After seeing how most of my relatives (and even my college roommate!) decorate, I am even more daunted by the idea that I might one day have to put on my Martha Stewart shoes and decide which type of holiday décor best suits my purposes. I have a few years at least before I have to worry about that, so for now, I’m going to enjoy my Sufjan Steven’s Chirstmas album* and try to pick up a few cooking skills. Oh, and maybe think up a better way to prank Dad with the nutcrackers.

*I really recommend you check it out! It's all kinds of beautiful and lots of fun. Try out "Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!" or "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!" to get a taste of some of the original songs he released, though his traditional covers (my favorites including "What Child is This [Anyway]?") are gorgeous too. :)

Happy Holidays!

(and thanks to Shannon and Amy Z for commenting on my last post. I appreciate the warm welcome!)