Christmas Decorations

I'm sitting in my office/bedroom/craft room enjoying the quiet of an empty house. The grandbabies are at GiGi's, Whitney has gone to turn in/pick up work from Dr. F's office, and it's just me and the whir of my computers and the washer/dryer noise in the next room. Ahhh. My Charlie Brown Christmas tree is standing tall and proud by the window, within reach of my desk. I bought some of the old-fashioned-looking LED lights this year, and I really love that I can leave the lights on for hours and they never get hot. I'm so anal (can you believe it!) about the lights. I put them on and took them off three or four times before getting it just right. I bought two strands of 200, and was hoping it would be enough. (I had about 800 of the mini-lights on the tree last year) It's amazing the difference these bigger lights make, because I only needed the one strand of 200, and will take the other strand back for a refund. It was such fun going through the box of ornaments that went missing last year. Well, actually it wasn't missing, it was tucked safely away in my (former) craft room. I was delighted to find it when transporting all my craft supplies out to the new room. I knew I had put the box in a safe place... I just couldn't remember where I had put it. Oh the joys of growing older. :-) Now if I can only find the tree skirt....

No decorations in the family room as yet - we'll wait a little closer to Christmas to do that. Even though the tree in the family room will be dressed in unbreakable ornaments, tiny little hands will still probably wreck the whole thing, so we're delaying it for a while. I'm going to put garland with lights on my porch bannister, so they can look out the window and see the "Christmas lights". I'm also hoping to put a lighted garland over "the ledge" (a look-through hole in the wall between kitchen and den with bannister thingies. We call it "the ledge" because we put things on it to keep them out of reach from Corey's little hands. Dr. M had a work station in his hallway we called "the ledge", and the label just seemed to fit this particular place in my house.)Anyway, the plan is to put a lighted garland over "the ledge" and hang our stockings from it. Stockings that I haven't found yet. I think they're with the tree skirt.

Leyland is such fun this year, getting all excited about the lights, and

Corey just points and says "Look, LOOK!!!" In town there are two large, lighted wreaths, and one night this past weekend as they were driving by, Dustin said "Look... Christmas donuts!!" Whitney said the kids got hysterical. So they're really enjoying the season, and they love to come in here and look at my tree. Miss Leyland sometimes tells her mommy she needs to go potty... just so she can take a detour and come see Greemaw's Christmas tree. Greemaw has been using the same little scrawny pine tree for several years. It's a very thin, very sparsely-limbed Charlie Brown tree. And I love it. It's so perfect for my small area. And because most every other surface area in my room is already covered with something, there's little room for Christmas decorations this year. I do have one area that holds my most favorite gift ever. Surrounding this, I have Christmas photos of Whitney as a child, and of Leyland and Corey too. That's about all the room I have for decorating, which is okay, because it means less to pack up and store in a safe place once it's all over.

However, I was quite surprised to find that another small area had been decorated for the holidays with no effort at all on my part. For a few moments this morning, the sun shone directly onto the base of my computer monitor, where I was treated to the sight of a winter wonderland!! It's amazing how nicely dust particles fit into the decor. It's a sweet little snow scene. The way the monitor stand is molded, it looks like there's a little frozen pond, and a nice little area of shoreline, complete with garlands hanging overhead. Well, it's really cobwebs, but I think garland sounds more festive, don't you? I can imagine all the little dust bunnies frolicking around in the "snow", and skating on the little "winter pond". There are certain rewards involved in being a slacker when it comes to dusting. Who knew? So, who am I to deprive my little dust bunnies of their own Christmas decor? I'm sure in a few days the snow will be deeper, the garlands will multiply, and I'll start to see little dustbunny snowmen surrounding the pond. Merry Christmas, dustbunnies!! Your decor is safe with me!