WAIT!   Don’t Shoot Me!

Just a poll here, no need to get all snippy…..

Even though Halloween was just last week, the retail establishments have been hauling out the Christmas stuff for over a month now (especially Costco, they started mid-August for pete’s sake).  So this brings me to ask you, when do you get serious about decorating for Christmas?

I have a cousin that used to put away her Halloween decorations and immediately haul out the Christmas baubles and commence with Santa Zone on November 1st.  I haven’t been over to her place in a long while, hopefully she came to her senses and at least waits until December 1st.  I doubt it though, she’s been known to be the rogue of the family.

I have two reasons for waiting to get our tree…. the first one is that our family has always gone out and hunted a tree down, scalped it and dragged it home.  In doing this annual ritual, we could never go out too early or we would have a naked tree by Christmas Day.  Secondly, I am probably the biggest Grinch when it comes to decorating, or rather, the time to START decorating, or doing anything Christmas related until I have officially caught its spirit…..which is usually about a week (or less) before the Holy Day.

Since the kids are grown and gone, hubby and I have gotten lazy, we don’t go out tree hunting in a frozen field anymore (no more frostbitten fingers and toes thankfully), preferring to drive 5 minutes up the road to the nearest nursery/greenhouse and purchasing one from the lot.  Done. Finito.  Stuff it into the trunk and drive back home in time for Happy Hour.

I would plop the tree into its stand, fill it up with water and leave it for a day or so for the branches to relax and the spiders to wake up so I could suck them up in the vacuum.  Nothing worse than looking at a newly decorated tree and finding extra decorations spun around it.

With about 3 days to go before Christmas, our tree would finally be dressed in its holiday finest and a spark of spirit would have ignited in me….only to be snuffed out on Boxing Day.  I waste no time decluttering the house from the Christmas spectacle, all that extra stuff put out makes me crazy.  I am a minimalist by nature and am thankful I didn’t inherit the clutter gene that runs rampant in both sides of my family.

So all told, Christmas officially reigns in my house for about a week, then the slate is wiped clean and my house is returned to normal.

How about you?