Onward

Thanksgiving is over, and in the interest of gearing up for the next holiday in the parade of things-to-do, I planned to jumpstart my Christmas decoration process by retrieving all my Christmas stuff from storage on Wednesday, and starting in on it today. That explains why I am currently sitting in a living room that looks like ground-zero at the North Pole after the explosion.

I have a lot of Christmas stuff--and that's like saying Barack Obama has a few problems, come January. I mean, A LOT of Christmas stuff. Maybe it's because I'm from Baltimore, the capital city of tacky. Maybe it's that we've downsized our house more often than our decorations stash. Maybe it's just that I like Christmas, and can't resist a reindeer or a Santa. Whatever the reason ("his heart or his shoes"?) I am fruitlessly engaging in the placement game at this point. How can I rearrange the furniture to fit in the requisite Frasier fir? If I pack the everyday knickknacks away, will I ever find them again? Where are the Christmas dishes? (I still don't think my son-in-law understands the concept of Christmas dishes. I think my sister and I invented it some years back...) How long must an object remain stationary before it should be decorated?

But enough lolly-gagging. I have piles of Santa Clauses and reindeer...and a sweet pair of baby ice skates I found not too long ago that need a place to hang. There are wreaths to hang and bells to jingle and Christmas songs to load on my Ipod. And of course, those Christmas dishes... Only four weeks to go.