I've had the best time decorating my home for the holidays this year! It's not something I've really been into since my dear mom passed away in 2003. Without her artistic skill and floral design tweaks that would transform the ugliest Christmas trinket into something of beauty, I've felt lost in the decorating phase of the season for so long.
Oh yeah, and that 5+ year period where my DH was actively into his drinking hobby, ripping and roaring through the holiday season like a drunken Santa. That just might have added to my non-decorating phase too.
In 2007, a few weeks before Christmas, I moved out of THAT chaos a few weeks before Christmas. I was lonely, frightened, dealing with the insanity of co-dependency, and didn't give a rat's ass whether Christmas came or not. Although I swore I wouldn't be decorating that year (hard to find space for the tree when you're crying more than unpacking). But darn it all if I didn't pull up my bootstraps, dig the tree out of the piles of boxes and ended up putting up a tree about 3 days before Christmas. It wasn't my mother's artistic masterpiece, but I know she was smiling down from above and I could faintly hear her saying "That's my girl!"
So in the ensuing years, I have worked hard to recreate my mother's design to the letter, pouring over photos of past Christmases searching for as many photos of that damn tree I could find! This year, I decided to ditch the old decos and strike out on my own, using a soft teal blue, silver and white ornaments, floral picks and ribbon. While I've been designing my own masterpiece, I've really felt my mom's spirit here guiding me. The lights were a nightmare (we had 1300 on my old 9ft tree) and took 2 days on & off. I mean seriously, what's up with one half of the string not lighting when it was perfectly lit when I put it away last year. I have just about determined I should just throw this year's lights away and start fresh every year, but the frugal me can't quite pull the trigger yet.
So then comes the ribbon, woven in and out of the tree, but it's got to look like that, not just ribbon sitting on branches. And truthfully, it really looks better with 2 complementary colors, so I had to "weave" twice. I channeled sweet Mom a lot during this phase. Then the crystal-like garland, where the strands can't be too high as not to look natural, but not so low they drag the lower branches. We're looking for the perfect delicate loop! Ornaments are fairly quick, but then comes the floral picks etc that she always added that made it look so rich and designer-like. I've been collecting some over the past few years, knowing I wanted to go with the blue theme eventually, but placing them so they "finish" the tree is tricky and I've been fiddling with them on & off ever since I considered myself finished (last Friday). Don't judge, I'm probably not the only person re-arranging their tree decorations during the season (but I bet I'm in a very small minority, huh?) I think I figured out which side of the family tree my perfectionist tendencies fell from...
The tree skirt is a beautiful ivory brocade-looking fabric and I even wrapped some fake presents in blue and silver paper & bows to place under the tree! I'm almost proud of it! Not proud enough to post a photo, but I'm too lazy to go downstairs and take it.
So yes, I'll be having a blue Christmas, but in a good way, with my own "talent" gleaned from faithfully watching my sweet super-talented mom all those many years.
Miss you, love you Mom! Thanks for your words of encouragement that would pop into my head from time to time. Hope I made you proud! (And I hope you noticed the blue is the color of your beautiful blue eyes!)
