Seasonal Decorating: A Thing I Didn't Care For In My 20s Is Now My Thing

(Here's Annabelle, reestablishing her relationship with this sparkly white throw blanket)

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Since I don't play the Christmas-before-Thanksgiving game, and since I was away over the Thanksgiving weekend, my Christmas decorations are not entirely up yet. I amazed myself by having a short burst of energy for getting started after the drive home on Sunday, so I put away some fall things and got out some "winter" things (technically it's still late fall, everybody, but I'm willing to play along). But yesterday I had some blogging and cybershopping to do, so I didn't advance the cause of seasonal decorating again until this morning. The Christmas tree will go up tonight. I feel like I've cheated myself out of several days of holiday cheer, but I'll be okay. 

I'm not even sure when I got to the point of having specific "fall decor" to take down. I've always done Christmas decorating, and some Halloween, but I didn't really change things up the rest of the time. I started to do the seasonal thing in the last few years, recently enough that even as I put away one set of things and get out the other set of things, I'm thinking to myself "Really? Am I really doing this? Is this who I am now?"

I think seasonal decorating comes on because of feeling different about life as a middle-aged person. When I was a couple of decades younger, I had less life experience, so it was easier to get some novelty. Practically any situation could feel new in one way or another. If nothing else, there was interpersonal drama to keep things fresh. There's no drama now. These days, I may not have seen it all but I have seen most of it. I've tried putting my furniture in most of the possible configurations for this space, and the furniture is nice enough that I don't intend to replace it soon, and I have some storage space, so I am damn well going to freshen things up by switching out some accessories on a seasonal basis, and for holidays. This, I hope, will keep me from sinking into a dreary haze from which I only emerge to note with astonishment that a decade has passed and I don't remember a single thing I did in that period of time.

With that said, I'm off to spread around some shiny baubles! I hope you're keeping things fresh today!

My Love/Hate Relationship with the Christmas Season

I love...

• Christmas trees.
• Festive outdoor lights.
• Festivity in general.
• Being generous to family and friends.
• Being generous to people I don't even know, through donations.
• Christmas music.
• Candy and baked goods.
• Classic Christmas TV specials.
• Saying "Happy Holidays!" to people because I want to wish them well but I don't know everyone's holiday affiliation and GUESS WHAT I'M AN ATHEIST so I'm practicing this whole "Joy to the World" thing in the secular mode, with an appreciation for the old pagan vibe of lighting things up in a dark time of year.

I hate...

• Obligatory gift-giving, especially in family cultures where this leads to passive-aggressive gift-giving (where it's easier to buy a present for someone you hate, due to family pressure, than to opt out, so you put a lot of thought into buying something acceptable that they won't like). I don't do this, but I find it upsetting that a lot of people get pressured to the point of doing it by toxic people who have emotional power over them.
• The horrifying bullshit of luxury jewelry ads that tell you that your love for someone can and should be measured by the amount you're willing to spend on a shiny adornment for them to wear around so that other people will know they've been showered with riches.
• Excessive consumerism in general. Do we need so much stuff? A constant churning of stuff in, stuff out, stuffing ourselves? Nope.

So I can get into this holiday, and enjoy it very much at times, but I always have ambivalent feelings about it because things get twisted and unpleasant when there's greed involved. I guess I'm going to lose all of my obscenely wealthy conspicuous consumer friends now... Oh, wait, I don't have any. :)