It’s Not Black Friday Here

Today has never been Black Friday in our house. The idea of shopping, let alone shopping when the masses are out shopping makes my skin crawl. I don’t know what I used to do before the internet. Oh yeah, catalogs. Today is perpetually reserved as the first day of Christmas decorating. I think this year I might have my decorating down to two days, which is a very manageable amount.

Thanks to my purchase last year of a new flip tree, the putting up of the tree is not the divorce inducing event it has been in years past. Thankfully Carter was very cheerful about helping Russ take the 42 boxes, half a dozen Christmas trees and 9 wreaths out of the attic. Russ had been dreading trying to carry the new 150 pound tree up from the crawl space, but Carter looked at him and said, “That’s only 75 pounds each.” It was a piece of cake for the two of them.

I was able to totally decorate the living room, dining room, breakfast room and entry today. The tree is ready to be decorated, but I did not see the need to impair the recovery of my back by spending half the day on the ladder. Russ has volunteered to hand me baskets of ornaments while I stand on the ladder tomorrow. I should be finished with the decorating well before it’s time to take Carter to the airport. It’s only about 5,000 ornaments that I have to hang.

Carter asked me when I started collecting Christmas decorations and I told her about how I had a real full size Christmas tree in college. She said, “It didn’t have as many ornaments as you have now?” Of course not, but I still have some of those ornaments I bought in college. It takes a lifetime to collect as many ornaments as I have.

So, perhaps today was Red Friday and tomorrow is Green Saturday. I love a year where Thanksgiving is early so I get almost an extra week of the Christmas season. Nothing makes me happier than coming downstairs to be treated by the needlepoint garland. No Black in my Christmas season.