Ma's Lame But Meaningful Christmas Decorations

(click on photos to enlarge)

Sunday afternoon saw Ma venture into the freezing attic for the stuff of festoonary.

Decided to go with a fake tree this year to negate the allergy reactions in about 3/4 of the kids. The description on the box stating "six feet tall" seemed a bit exaggerated so we decided to set it on a sturdy platform of cardboard boxes.
Ethan looks skeptical...I'll probably encourage him to go to LeTourneau. Trevor bows his head in an effort to appear humble. Humility never seems to enter Nolan's mind and Melinda is laser-bent to perfect the angle of individual branches.

And voilà
It's only been knocked over once so far...

As to Ma's overall taste in decorating I would say this: it has long been a subject of family jokes that I either don't know what I want or don't have any good taste whatsoever.

To this I would readily agree. I also don't particularly care.

When one takes certain budget matters into consideration and realizes that I spent much of my youth practicing the piano, reading and/or playing outdoors, it's a wonder there is anything remotely pleasing to look at in our home.

Contrary to what the vast majority of womanhood seems to have done, I did not spend any time at all poring over decorating magazines or learning how to build fully functional furniture with leftover pop bottle caps. (which is good since bottle caps don't exist anymore)

Ma didn't go in for the traditional "girly" stuff.

No, my prerequisites for most decorations are:
1) Was it cheap? Given to us or procured from Goodwill?
2) How many misdirected nail-holes in the kitchen wall will it cover up?
3) Does it fall within the realm of nice or at least acceptably tacky, aesthetically speaking?
These three comply.

This year's newest acquisition from Goodwill
It's blue, so it goes with the kitchen decor.

A neighbor gave us this huge poinsettia :-) That'll save me from buying the ones from Wal*Mart that usually die anyway...also on the wall is a Christmasy potholder--again, hiding a hole in the wall.
I left the John Deere calendar up because we NEED that info and the green of the tractors fits in with Christmas colors. Also the yellow background just happens to go with my kitchen walls :-D

Every so often I go out and by something pretty and new. This wreath joined the hodge-podge of used junk a couple of years ago.


The real Christmas
Last year I finally got brave enough to put the (breakable) manger scene down where the little kids can actually see it.

And I finally got smart enough to stack up some of the storage boxes, hide them with a cheap piece of cloth and set up the manger scene. And despite my instructions to put the wise men on the adjoining box to illustrate that they were not at the manger, it would appear the men from the east arrived early this year...
 

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