JOINING CINDY @ MY ROMANTIC HOME ...Thankfully...we're having a 'Charlie Brown' Christmas at our house this year...
One with much less 'fru fru' ...much less out on the tables, counter tops and walls.
Usually I decorate top to bottom...
but this year, I'm participating in a 'pittance' sort of way.
My foyer...usually hosts our hand-painted nativity scene, which is surrounded completely...Completely by:
angel pictures on the wall,
angel peel-and-stick murals on the windows,
angel votives on the staircase,
and even angel stakes in the plants ...
you know, those little metal or plastic decorations you stick in your potted plants.
This year's foyer, however, will be somewhat lonely...
with ONLY an 18" Charlie Brown Christmas tree on the curio cabinet...
the cartoon stick-on Charlie Brown nativity on the front-door sidelite windows...
and a full-sized, decorated Christmas tree in the living room
(couldn't get be without one...it is DD's senior year and all...)
CLICK THE PIC...for a LARGER view...
ALL THE MYRIAD of angels will remain wrapped and tucked away until next year's Holy Season. Their singing will be muffled by all the tissue paper and bubble wrap surrounding them.
The candles will last another year without having to be lit during the celebration and the green, potted plants will let out an 'ignored sigh' as they realize the angels won't be hovering around them for the next three weeks.
Now don't think I'm all depressed and stuff...I'm not.
We'll still be celebrating the Season while eating, singing, wrapping, unwrapping and going to worship.
There's something very FREEING about taking an abbreviated approach this year...
My feet will certainly appreciate not having to traipse up and down both sets of steps while pulling everything from the basement.
And, I could almost hear my 'knees' preparing a serenade... singing their joys of not getting 'pounded' each time I reached the basement concrete floor.
Even my arms and neck are readying to sing in harmony knowing the 'unusual overexertion' won't be happening in 2009.
All this 'true-to-life' relief will be opening my calendar (for those several hours worth of time that would have been decorating)...
... shopping and cooking without feeling it flying by too quickly.
...planning a new 'knitting project' for the shawl ministry.
Yes, Charlie Brown's simplicity ... seeking to be 'less complicated'
Yes, the child-like simplicity...
Yuletide's best decorations: wreaths of smiles, and being wrapped in hugs.
Blessings,
