The Burrow

The house is really empty now. I told TBG that we had to get some more stuff out right away and he looked at me as if I'd grown another head and wondered why in the world I thought there was something wrong with the simplicity that was our un-decorated home. I am suffering from Decoration Deprivation. Though TBG volunteered, unsolicited, that the tree was beautiful and that I should feel free to leave it up as long as I pleased, the consensus seems to be that after Epiphany (I don't know what that is, but it seems to be important) your Christmas pillows are no longer adorable. Rather, they begin to speak to your need for clutter and your inability to clean up after yourself. So, I began to dismantle the house. This counter in the kitchen isn't used for anything (a design flaw to be rectified in my dreams). I figured the stuff I stashed there could live there for a looooong time. I never figured out how to water this kissing ball from Auntie M and family, and it...

December 1st is the start of my favorite time of year. For some reason, I channel the stress into more vigorous elf-ing and suddenly I'm smiling instead of grumbling. It's all about the love. Nannie is my inspiration, my role model, my raison d'etre in the Christmas department. And yes, I know that raison d'etre means reason for being ..... it's totally true that I would never have come up with the concept on my own. Growing up on the Jewish end of the street, surrounded by Jewish friends and relatives, participating in Jewish festivities, I never missed Christmas at all. Never lusted for a Christmas Tree, never begged for a Chanukah Bush, never felt excluded or deprived. Santa didn't ask if I was Jewish; I sat on his lap and enjoyed the experience but I didn't mind that he went to Rita's house but not to mine. G'ma let me put snowflakes on the window with decals and some spray-on goo that left dandruff on the rug for months beyond its useful...