Every year since 2010 I’ve done a series of December diaries focusing on a variety of seasonal topics ranging from music to food to ugly sweaters. (Full disclosure: I did ONE Seasonal diary in 2008, and 2009 was the first December K2 was with us (exactly fourteen years ago we were packing to return home from Ethiopia with him) so I was a little distracted :-)). You can find them all, tagged with #seasonal, and yes I have a spreadsheet so I know what topics I’ve done recently!
It’s time to do it again here in Let’s Go With This Is The New Normal 2023! While my personal December perspective is primarily secular but culturally Christian-based with a healthy mix of Winter Solstice and Unitarian Universalism, these diaries are for everyone who celebrates a holiday in December that makes you happy, that you mark differently than all the other days, or that involves negotiating who brings what food where… or even if there isn’t... this is a place for you and I really hope you’ll bring yourself to the comments!
As I mentioned above, I really do have a spreadsheet to track the topics I’ve covered over the years. I’ve written *44* of them, after all! So imagine my surprise when I thought about what I wanted to write about tonight, hunted to see when I last covered the topic and found I hadn’t done so since my 7th Seasonal diary back in 2012. So without further ado…
Over Thanksgiving weekend we were struck by just how many people seemed to go directly from turkey and pie to stringing lights and getting trees — we saw our first tree-on-car on Black Friday morning! Of course, there were houses nearby who’d had decorations lit up outside since early November — one of which I have learned does so because the owners head to Florida in December so want to see the decorations up before they leave.
Casa Brillig has never been a Thanksgiving Weekend decorating household. Ever. Honestly, it’s NEVER before December 1 even if Thanksgiving is super early. We’re barely ready by Christmas Eve sometimes, truth be told. And there was that year we waited so long to get a tree they were all gone. Yes, we learned from that!!
This year, I was determined to get ahead of the calendar! In general, I ‘festivate’ (a lovely word Mr. Brillig coined) the house, and we all decorate the tree together. So I began bringing down our boxes of winter holiday decorations from the attic this past weekend. First out were the Advent Calendars… this year we’re using two, the first is one my Mom gave us the year we were married, and the second is a Target one that celebrates my love of their “Featherly Friends” aka Target Birds collectibles. Hold this thought, because you’ll be seeing more of them throughout the season :). Next came the holiday-themed kitchen and bath towels, potholders, trivets etc. Our table and sideboard runners are now decked in red and green, and today I hung garlands in all the usual spaces. The plan is to get our tree next weekend.
As I decked our halls, I realized many of our things go in the the same places every year. I noticed because we’ve recently done some rearranging and redecorating and those ‘same places’ no longer exist (or have other items on them). I didn’t consider how much a creature of habit I am when decorating until I needed new spaces to put our Nutcrackers!
So how about you? Do your seasonal decorations come out at the very first socially acceptable moment? Or do you get things up just-in-time? Do you festivate all at once, or over a few days or weeks, a little at a time? Does your whole household participate or is one of you more inclined to hang decorations? I’d love to hear your holiday decorating habits in the comments, after you peruse tonight’s Tops!
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TOP COMMENTS
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From inkstainedwretch:
Great diary by Merlin196360 inspired many great comments about an extremely, decidedly, absolutely less than great human, Ammon Bundy. Like G2geek’s reply to Dfh1, shortly followed by the reply to Therapy.
From Northern Pol:
In Keith Newman’s Would Trump Declare Insanity?, Arfeeto brilliantly describes the hate many of us have for Trump, and the effect ‘s diary , that hate has on those of us who are not prone to hating others.
From susans:
Have yourself a very scary Christmas, courtesy of Gutenberg. From ChrisRodda’s Commander projects Mikey Weinstein on screen at unit gathering, calls him “anti-Christian terrorist“
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday (Sunday), December 3rd 2023, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
Top Mojo for December 2nd, aka Top Mojo for Saturday:
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday (Sunday), December 3rd 2023. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you to the wonderful dKos staff who made it possible to continue this feature in memory of jotter!
Top Pictures for December 2nd, aka Top Pictures for Saturday: