Seasonal Decorating

I’ve never been much of a seasonal decorator. In fact, I sometimes joke that I am a Scrooge. If I can get out of dragging the Christmas Tree out of the basement and erecting it, untangling the gosh-darn strings of lights, and decorating said tree, plus putting out all the other little red and green Chotzki’s, I’ll do it! My poor daughter, Sissy, who is like a miniature Martha Stewart on Steroids, loves to decorate, in fact, she went shopping for her tree the day after Thanksgiving, and it’s gorgeous…So she pretty much just sighs and offers to host Christmas every year, and I use it as an excuse to get out of putting up MY tree.

In my defense, our house is only 700 square feet, and there isn’t a lot of room for a tree, plus navigating our basement is like picking your way around landmines.

But what really doesn’t make sense, is that I’m always drawn to the post-season rock bottom clearance prices on seasonal decorating items…For instance, last year, I bought a bunch of harvesty items, then because I didn’t want to display them, I packed them up and sent them off to Sassy in Chattanooga, so that she would have some Holiday spirit.

Last week, the day before Thanksgiving, I ran to Dollar General strictly to buy paper plates and possibly really cheap plastic relish dishes, since DsquareD wanted to have a “relish tray” for our Family Thanksgiving, at which we were hosting HIS family. This brings to mind the SWEET pickle debacle from early in our marriage, but that’s a story for another day.

At any rate, we usually go up north to HIS parents for Thanksgiving, so that’s just another excuse not to decorate. But because Sissy had to work overnight on Thanksgiving eve, and really couldn’t leave town, and because Timm the enchanter (her beau) always hunts all day on Thanksgiving, and I didn’t want her to be alone, I offered to host Thanksgiving, and no one talked me out of it…

So here I was at Dollar General, and they had Harvesty/Autumnal/Thanksgiving decorations for 90% OFF!!!!! I mean, how can you NOT? I bought some stuff, including a little net bag of fake gourds for .90. I thought it would be so cute spilling out of a cornucopia as a table centerpiece for dinner. Now, mind you, I don’t have a cornucopia, and I know I’ve seen wicker ones at Goodwill, but I figured, two days before Thanksgiving, there wouldn’t be any left, but I remembered seeing a crochet pattern for one on the Lion Brand yarn website. Unfortunately, the only yarn I had on hand that was the right color was super bulky yarn, so I got out a BIG crochet hook, and made up the cornucopia, and it looks like the tin man’s hat, only floppier, and it definitely doesn’t look much like a cornucopia, but what the heck? And when I filled it with the fake gourds and pinecones and leaves, I discovered that all the gourds in the bag were round ones, none were the eggplant shaped ones, with the curvy neck, so I went BACK to Dollar General, and this time I pretty much wiped them out of the Harvesty decorations, picturing myself buying a bin to store all this stuff in for all the Thanksgivings to come, and labelling it nicely and putting it neatly on a shelf in the basement where I could actually find it next year and all the years to come…then I remembered that this was MY house we were dealing with, not Sissy’s house, where all the plastic bins are labelled and neatly lined up in a row on the basement shelves, with the fronts all at the edge of the shelf…

On Thanksgiving day, things kind of got off track when the 13 guests piled into our little “open concept” living/dining/kitchen area and DsquareD was having a minor meltdown over the two 16 pound turkeys he was roasting which got done two hours earlier than he had planned and he couldn’t find any real flour for the gravy, since I’ve gone all Paleo/Gluten Free/Low FODMAP and cleaned out the pantry, and there was no room for the “Cornucopia of wonders” on either of the tables…so all that got used was the tablecloth (90% off), some strategically scattered potpourri scented pinecones, and a “Give Thanks” sign.

Now I have all these clearance decoration items, and no bin to put them in, and a seriously messy basement, and I’m wondering “what was I thinking…” By next Thanksgiving, I’m bound to forget that I have this stuff, or I won’t feel like digging them out, or putting them up, or maybe we’ll be living on a sailboat and won’t have room…

I’ve spent the last week debating whether to buy a bin and keep them, or bless some of my more decoratingly inspired friends with them, in which case I sort of wasted the money, but not really…only don’t tell DsquareD, because he hates it when I: a) spend money, and b) bring home more “stuff”.