Black Friday for me does not mean shopping — it means decorating!! As I write this, I sit in between my fully decorated tree and Christmas Village that has been a tradition in my family since before I was born. Suffice to say, I’m feeling very Christmassy. Decorating in our household is a weekend affair. I always try to do it all in one day, but it never happens. Nevertheless, I pop in a Christmas movie — this year it was Eloise at Christmastime — and get to work.
Let’s start from the beginning. Black Friday, a.k.a the day after Thanksgiving, is our decorating day. I have put my tree up before Thanksgiving a few times before, but most of my family prefers it to go up after Thanksgiving. 🙄 It’s actually not that big of a deal to me — as long as it goes up as soon as Thanksgiving is over. So here we are. My mom and I did the decorating this year. She took the outside and I took the inside. First up was, of course, the tree. We have an artificial and I absolutely love it because I can keep it up as long as I want (among other reasons). I do miss the smell of a real tree, but we get a real wreath for our front door, so I just sniff that when I’m missing it.
The tree itself usually takes between one to two hours (including putting on the lights and the ornaments). After that, I start on our Christmas Village. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s basically a miniature-scale collection of Christmas houses that we have built up over the years to create this mini-village full of Christmas fun. My favorite one is from the Thomas Kinkade collection that I got for my mom quite a few years ago for her birthday. It’s blue with a wrap-around porch that screams New England Christmas. Of course, there are so many different companies that have created their own collections, some of which are really cool. There’s a Disney village, a Harry Potter village, and even a Charlie Brown village. How cool is that?
Following those two things, which pretty much took the whole day, I set myself on decorating the stairwell. I just wrap some artificial garland with pretty lights down the whole thing and leave it at that. I find simplicity is better in this case. Finally, I decorate our mantle. Of course, another artificial garland goes up there, along with the stockings and our nativity set. Every year, I tell myself not to overboard the mantle, but I always find (or sometimes buy) something so Christmassy that goes perfectly on there that it always ends up with tons of stuff. And guess what? In the end, I never mind. It always looks so gorgeous and festive.
In terms of the outside, my mom has been stocking up on solar Christmas lights over the past several years and they’re actually really good. They are bright and look great at night. Then again, it would be a little weird if I said they looked great during the day, wouldn’t it? In our family, while we do put some lights out in the front so people passing by can enjoy them, we tend to decorate our backyard a little more. The reason for that is because we go back there so often, whether it’s with Marnie or each other (when the weather’s not too cold), that we want to enjoy the Christmas season there too. We have a little porch area, so my mom put up a few wreaths and a lot of pretty (solar) lights. When we look out the window at night, it is the most beautiful scene!
All in all, while it’s a lot of work, it’s obviously so worth it. I wait for this all year round and I’m so excited that it’s that time of year again. There’s just something about Christmas lights that makes everything seem a little bit better, don’t you agree? Speaking of, I’m going to go make myself a cup of hot cocoa and enjoy these lights a little more…
When do you all decorate? Let me know your favorite part about decorating for Christmas in the comments below!
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