And by ages, I mean my twenties, thirties, forties, etc.

I spent the weekend following Thanksgiving decorating my house for last night’s Tapestry meeting. I was determined to have my home completely decked out in its holiday finery by the time we broke open the wine (see last week’s post.)

Mission accomplished, but not without a lot of barge toting and bale lifting (however that saying goes.)

Actually they are bins, about fifteen of them and they require a cart to haul them from closet to staging area.

So lets get started, shall we; we have a lot of ground to cover. (I feel compelled to share this with you as your Senior Influencer. I’m seeing all the shelter magazines using blog posts from savvy decor influencers, so not to be left behind, I will subject you to mine.) I know it’s hugely self-indulgent, but I have to get this out of my system. Like a head cold.

TWENTIES AND THIRTIES: With young kids and limited funds, I took pinking shears and a yard of red checked fabric and cut strips to tie into ribbons on anything that moved. It was pitiful, but sweet and my kids thought it was beautiful, so, all good. I also began collecting (very slowly) Christmas dishes at Arnold’s (with a lot of help from my mother–part of which is above) and a variety of ornaments at Tuesday morning. I also exercised my arts and crafts skills on a number of things that survive today and some that don’t.

FORTIES AND FIFTIES: The collection grew as I collected a set of Christmas dishes from mother-in-law Alice (Windswept Santa–very dramatic dishes), ornaments from family travels (still to this day,) and Santas and Nutcrackers from the kids and other family members. I’m especially ruthless at the White Elephant parties.

SIXTIES AND SEVENTY: The kids are grown and gone and I can buy all the cool stuff now–after the holidays, on sale, of course. Plus I still get gifted with nutcrackers: sparkly ones from Adam and Corey from the actual Nutcracker every year, a special one from Sweden, and a gay pride nutcracker from Erin last year, When Alice moved out of her house, I walked away with a number of her Dickens Village pieces, which I cherish. This year I am interspersing them with other vignettes.

I try to group things according to theme, but then I get tired. And when I look around at the colorful chaos, I think, well, it’s festive and personal and nostalgic and warm and fun. But sophisticated or even beautiful, it is not.

I admire people who can decorate in all white or silver, color-coordinating their tree with their mantel with their outdoor display.

Nay, nay. Here the theme is color and lots of it. Even outside, our lights are always multi-colored. Every Santa, every ornament tells a story, whether it’s from nearly 50 years ago or last month (yes, I brought an ornament back from England.) And I guess it will be that way for ages to come.

In the meantime I’m gonna need a bigger closet.