Thanksgiving Contemplations and Discoveries

Holy crap.
Who knew I had this many Christmas lights and decorations? Hands?
OK, I was pretty worried about having enough lights to decorate this new house - it has sooooo many more places to put things and soooo many more eaves to hang lights. Today after work I went down into the basement and started opening all of those "Christmas decoration" boxes so we could hang things while it was "warm" - 50 deg. Down at the bottom of each box, there were strings and strings and STRINGS of lights. Icicle lights, garland lights, straight-string lights. I started to set aside groups so I would have enough for the tree, but then I had to separate that pile... Too many even for the seven foot tree!

The Big Tree will go in the bay window, and I'll do the red and gold this year. My kids always thought I was crazy, carefully saving the color-co-ordinated tinsel year to year, wrapped in sheets of flat newspaper to keep them uncrinkled. Well, I have the silver for my blue and silver decor, and the holographic for my multicolor decor, and the red and gold for - well. I found all of my trees, too - the tiny ceramic one, the rotating fiber-optic one, the tree-in-the-burlap base one, and of course the Big Tree. Each one will have its own special place...

Then there's ALL those tabletop and wall decorations... The huge glass elk, the sterling-silver deer, the birch tree candleholders, the candles candles candles!

I brought eight big boxes up from the basement, all outdoor decorations, and left the seven boxes of indoor decorations downstairs for later. We finished the lights on the front porch and out on the arbor; a large chandelier tree hangs from the porch ceiling. Then the twinkling-star LED lights and garland all around, with big red bows to finish off the porch. Next was the bay window - "glittering" icicles that twinkle on and off asytmetrically, and, yes, twinkling net lights laid across the roof of the bay window to add to the movement. Tomorrow we will hang the verandah lights; the icicles and front-entrance framing lights, and an even bigger chandelier tree will hang on the verandah! I'll stretch net lights across the roof of the verandah as well, underneath my bedroom windows. I've already put up huge wreaths on the front and verandah doors already - another thing no one understood, WHY I save my wreaths year to year, and make or buy more. Well, this year I have DOORS to decorate!

So tomorrow I'll cook Thanksgiving dinner for just the two of us. No one's coming to dinner, our company all came last week. So we could just bake pies and eat them - but we'll have the fixin's we like for dinner and several dinners to come; the Turkey, the potatoes and gravy, the stuffing and devilled eggs and cheese and sausage on crackers, along with the pies. Then if I have the energy, I'll probably do some inside decorations, since the wind is supposed to be pretty brisk tomorrow. Saturday we'll finish up the outside, and Sunday night at sundown - per my agreement with my neighbor Pat, not one minute before! - we'll turn everythng on. And Saturday night we're supposed to get some light snow...

Today was a half day at work, So after everyone went down to watch the play I put up my red metallic backing paper for our Christmas bulletin board. Once Cheryl comes back Monday, she and I will stay after school and finish it. The Drama club kids bought me flowers for working on their costumes and helping them with makeup. They are sooo sweet! I have to fix Dustin's Puck costume this weekend, and finish up some work for school.

All in all, a very peaceful and happy little vacation. I miss my friends, but I wish THEY were HERE; I don't want to go back THERE! But I'll take pictures and send gifts to let them know I'm thinking of them all the same...