Blogmas Day 19 – Mail Woes

I realize that the further we get into December the crazier the postal service gets, but really.  I had a delivery due today, my new phone to be exact and was woken up to a knock on the door.  Ran as fast as I could down to the door, even gave a shout hoping whoever was on the other side could hear someone was coming…only to find that not only had there been an attempted delivery but that truck was long gone.  What the shit, there is a van in my driveway!  You’re telling me you can’t give people more than ten seconds to answer the bloody door especially when there’s a strong likelihood someone is freaking there!?

At least they knocked this time.  I guess.  But now I have to wait until tomorrow to pick up which is a pain in the ass.

Add to that another package hasn’t yet arrived.  We got Dalila a BarkBox for Christmas because we thought it’d be a fun gift for her and they had a special going where the first box was only $5.  So what the hey, right?  Well that box was supposed to be here by now and I’ve been religiously checking the mailbox the past few weekdays.  No Barkbox.  Really hoping it’s just late and not won’t-be-here-for-Christmas late.  Please don’t be lost in the mail!

Blogmas Day 18 – Christmas in the Mall

Who doesn’t love the malls at Christmas, at least from a non-shopping perspective?  Christmas shopping done long ago, Mom and I decided to visit the mall and have a look around.  It actually wasn’t too crazy although I wasn’t feeling too great, that put a wee damper on the day but the sights were worth it.  Santa had a great little setup this year, although noticeably smaller from previous years, which is strange.  I guess with all the work they’d been doing there wasn’t space anymore downstairs.  Still a great display though.  They also had giant lit Christmas ornaments hanging from the mall’s ceiling down at the spaces where you can look down to the first floor from the second, some silver and some gold and some even pink with twinkling lights so they looked like they glittered.  But the big focal this year were the giant lit figures throughout the mall, and I mean huge!  They were all so tall they could only be positioned in places where they could reach even past the second floor.  One was a beautiful Christmas three, the others were giant deer with antlers, the smallest was a Christmas ornament that you could actually walk through and wasn’t tall enough to reach the second floor.  Absolutely impressive this year for sure.

We didn’t go to every store but one we never miss when we hit the mall is The Bombay Company.  Oh the furniture in that store…all the beautiful expensive furniture and decorations.  I couldn’t help myself and snapped so many pictures.  Whoever is in charge of decorating in that shop has a hell of a good eye.  Ah, le sigh, to have the income to be able to go crazy in that store…

All in all, a good day.

Blogmas Day 13 – Season of Lights

Everyone’s finally bringing out the lights!

Walking Dalila at night has finally paid off.  Just around the corner from me there’s at least fourteen houses all decked out in lights and decorations.  Those projectors are really gaining popularity now, aren’t they?  So many houses have them not just as a single display but along with lights and decorations as well.  I got to say some of them are really nice looking, although my favourite will always be the red and green settings.  Reminds me of holly and evergreen and is just a very holiday pairing.  And I love that there are still so many houses that decorate, there have been some years were it seemed like the number of people doing such decorating were becoming less and less.  That could have been due to area of course, but it wouldn’t be the first holiday to suffer from lack of interest in some way.  I’ve noticed less and less kids trick or treating these past several years that at this point it’s not worth buying candy anymore, but that’s another post for another time.

I remember as a child there always seemed to be so many streets with many lit houses.  Perhaps that’s an inflated childhood memory, but that’s what I remember.  With the old school bulbs because we didn’t have LED or lifetime bulbs back in the 80s and 90s.  The sights always gave me a warm homey feeling that gets happily rekindled every season so much so that it’s downright depressing when we reach that point that the lights while beautiful have finally overstayed their welcome and have to come down.  But I guess they wouldn’t be quite so magical if we kept them up all year long.

Blogmas Days 11-12 – Not-So-Wet Winter

Well, the snow is back.  It’s been coming down quite well these couple days and from the look of things, looks like it’s going to stay.  So definitely a white Christmas this year for sure.

There’s a very unique silence that comes with the snowfall, almost like you can feel the world being asleep in that moment.  Not quite like the middle of the night in your house, or creepy middle-of-the-night silence, more like a hushed whisper.  It’s peaceful.  I love being out in it, and it doesn’t matter what time of day it is it’s there.  I’ll go out and shovel just to spend time outside in it.  And the night never gets totally dark when it’s snowing if you ever notice.  It’s like the clouds reflect light or hold a bit of their own so it’s almost more of a dusky night than a total one.

The downside?  Lots of shoveling.  Best way to mitigate that – more shoveling!

Yeah that kind of sounds counter-productive, but shoveling it repeatedly when it’s only a small buildup means you don’t have it up to your ankles (or higher) in the morning, with a nice giant pile in front of your car courtesy of the snow plow.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

Blogmas Days 8-10 – Wet Winter

Not a lot to write home about other than it’s been pretty soggy weather.  Showers and more showers.  If my tulips start popping up it wouldn’t surprise me in the least (I hope I remember to pull those bulbs up next spring).  It really feels like experiencing Christmas somewhere else, like I’ve moved to the west coast or somewhere more southern.  And it seems like this is to continue for at least another week.  Hasn’t made it easy for the outdoor strays I’ve been caring for, either.  I set up shelter for them in my shed, and while the one doesn’t seem to want to stay there she’ll still go in there to eat.  It at least gives her a break from the weather but I wish I could get her in.  Maybe there’ll be a Christmas miracle.

Spotted a few houses with Christmas lights up.  This season is where my bad habit of waiting until it gets dark before walking the dog comes from.  A bad habit to be sure but as long as Dalila gets to go up her favourite street (and boy does she know it when she sees it!) she doesn’t seem to mind.  Let the light hunting begin!

Blogmas Day 7 – Decorated

It’s all finally out and up!

Every decoration that I could find – well,  almost, the nativity set isn’t coming out this year because there’s no where to put it – has finally been hauled out of the basement to enjoy some air time.  Made quite a mess in the basement, but I had to go through that stuff anyway.  The main tree is decorated, the nutcrackers are out as are all the little light up stuff and other little decorations, and the garlands are up.  Even the garland that goes outside and the new little snowman we bought this year.  Every year we add a piece to the outdoor display and slowly grow it, the only downside is there is no outdoor plug.  Someone dropped the ball on that when these units were designed.  Though on the upside having it plugged inside the house makes it much easier to turn the lights on and off at night so no going outside to pull the plug or worrying about having a timer.  I guess it’s not all that bad, in hindsight.

I am super glad though that the furbabies have zero interest in tree climbing this year.  They were all over it (literally!) last year, I can’t count how many times I had to dig Zahra or Puppy or the twins out of the tree, even with tinfoil all over the bottom branches which was supposed to deter cats.  According to the online sources I was reading cats don’t like the sound of tinfoil or the feel of it on their feet.  If only I could have been so lucky.  Worse, because of how tiny Zahra and Puppy were last year not only could they zoom up that tree in seconds flat but it made them that much harder to dig out.  Gilmore and Zachary couldn’t get too far, at least.  Ranger was the only good boy – at least with regards to the tree.  Ornaments are still fair game as are the ends of the branches, but that’s what I keep the spray bottle around for.

Blogmas Day 6 – Well That Didn’t Last…

So the temperature spiked.  And now what snow we got is melting away.

I remember it did this last year and December was stupidly unseasonally warm and green up literally until Christmas, where we had snow for a few days before it all melted away again.  I’m really hoping that won’t repeat this year (or worse), but so far it’s looking like it.  There were many predictions of this year being a worse winter compared to last year, not sure how well those are going to hold up though.  Granted it is kind of early, officially it’s not even winter so there’s definitely time.  But this is weird and not fun.  But climate change supposedly isn’t a thing.  Fake news my arse.  I don’t remember a December from my whole childhood where we didn’t have snow and cold by this point in time.

Of course saying that makes me feel super old, like I’m one step away from “Back in my day”-ing over every little change, haha.  I’ll blame the nostalgia.

Blogmas Day 2 – It’s Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas…sort of

Dug out the trees!

Well, at least one of them.  The second one (the main one) wasn’t really a “dig out” as much as it was a new purchase.  We had this beautiful one for years that had mixed branches, snow tips and pine cones on it and was a good 7 feet tall, pre-lit but a year after we got it the entire string surged and burnt out.  You get tired of restringing a beast that big every year so we finally bought a new one.  This thing is amazing!  And kinda crazy.  First, it’s on wheels so a breeze to move about (although I’m not sure how I’m going to get it into the basement, but I’ll figure that out after the New Year) and the wheels lock to keep it in place.  Second the height is adjustable, it can go as low as four feet to seven or higher feet and it stays in proportion no matter its height.  Third, seven light options!  I’m usually a white lights gal myself, but sometimes colour lights can look pretty good too and it’s honestly quite fun having options this year.  The old one hasn’t been tossed, there are plans to re-purpose that one.  Even sans lights it’s too beautiful to get rid of.

The four foot pre-lit I put up in my room took a bit of a beating in storage.  My two kitty boys, those twelve pound house panthers that they are have a habit of sneaking into my closet all year round and were fond of sitting on the tree.  No lasting damage, easily fixable, but I think after the holidays are over it’s going to get stored standing up to prevent future lop-sidedness from house panthers.  It’s the perfect size for me, just big enough for all my favourite ornaments without crowding or gaps.  I had bought a new tree skirt last year which didn’t last long, sadly.  Christmas last year the cats were almost three months old and super playful and literally everything was a toy – tree skirt included.  Needless to say it doesn’t look quite as nice this year.  Well at least they’ve grown out of that stage now.

Mostly.

Now to get the rest of the stuff out and up before they decide to dig around in the storage box.

Blogmas Day 1 – Here Comes Yule (and Christmas too!)

So some of my favourite streamers are doing Vlogmas – decided I’d do Blogmas!

My favourite time of the year (aside from autumn)!  I don’t know what it is about this time of year but to me it’s positively magical.  As much as I usually detest the cold I typically don’t get too tired of the cold and snow until after New Year’s.  Although we’ve yet to see much of the white stuff this year, a couple sprinklings at most that didn’t stick around.  I love when there’s snow for Christmas straight to New Year’s, it adds to that magic.  I used to and still do love those moments during a good snowfall when the world goes quiet, it’s the most peaceful thing in the world.

Christmas for me hasn’t been a spiritual thing until several years ago when I started practicing it in that way in earnest.  I still celebrate Christmas the way we always have growing up and still maintain those traditions – visiting family on certain days, baking familiar recipes, decorating the house.  For me now that’s a little different because I spend the month getting ready for two celebrations instead of one.  For now, the trees are getting brought out, evergreen-scented candles are going, and there are 20 days left to Yule!