The other day I decided to look at holiday posts from my old blogs. Feeling nostalgic, I decided to just copy/paste a few entries. I've seen other people do this before, so I figure why not do the same? The first two I'll post below.
As always, they're no biggie and certainly wouldn't win any awards.
The first was written exactly four years ago today.
November 6, 2008
Okay --- so I can't hear those bells here in the humid, snowless and sleigh-less state of Texas, but I can envision it elsewhere, thanks to early Christmas commercials for Folgers coffee and Duracell batteries.
Alrighty now, it's happy confession time:
When the department stores start bringing out the shiny tinsel and plastic reindeer in September, I think that's premature and very unfair to Halloween. But... a few days ago - yes, here comes my confession - I set up our Christmas village.
That is to say, our Christmas village which so happens to have the good fortune of not suffering for sleigh rides and children building snowmen on the lawn with the neighborhood kids. (The grass really is greener... err, snowier I mean... even in fictitious towns, isn't it?)
Does putting up the village the first week of November make me a Clark W. Griswold?
This year the holiday season will not be filled with nothing save angst in an endless quest to find the perfect Christmas gifts.
It's going to be brimming over with classic holiday cartoons like Santa Claus is Coming To Town and A Garfield Christmas. I watch those Christmas specials every year of course, but this time I'm going to sit down with a hot cup of cocoa....... and my cat, Wendy Moira Angela Darling, whom is really fond of Mickey's Christmas Carol........ and really immerse myself in their magic.
(Wendy at our old house, years ago, watching MCC)
(Since I'll be reliving my childhood, I might as well adopt the language, right?)
Note: My cat, Wendy Moira Angela Darling, - yes, she insists on me typing out her full name. She's spoiled and a diva, what can I say? - wants it known that she also loves 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.
Hmm......... I'm sensing a theme here, my Kitty Princess.
November 10, 2008
.... about rain, don’t you?
It's wet.
It's wet and slippery, ruins your brand new pair of pristine white walking shoes, and invites a parade of flying insects inside your house for the cats to torment and play with.
Worst of all, it makes a girl wish for snow! (Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen in the next 15 years ). But November rain...... hey, isn't that a song from the 90's?..... didn't stop this gal and her Mom from shopping today.
Not-so-fun fact: I'm sure that elsewhere, rain in November is cold and dreary and quite possibly turns into the white stuff that can construct Frosty-the-Snowman again. You might even be able to perform miracles by bringing said snowman back to life... but only if you could find Professor Hinkle's magical silk hat!
But here in Spring (not the season, but the town), rain is not only a hazard to your hair, but is so icky and warm that it sticks to your skin like flies to flypaper.
Regardless of the weather, we stepped out that door. The rain came in lull's all day, so the umbrella was mainly used as batting practice on the mosquitoes.
At Garden Ridge we bought a pre-lit tree for the big Christmas window display, some ornaments for the new miniature tree, and then more little trees... am I sensing a theme here?...... for our BEAUTIFUL Christmas village. (I'll try to add pics or video of our village sometime later this week. I'm still looking for a little pond to put under the bridge).
Very little Christmas stuff is up right now. Usually not one decoration is put up until the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we're doing things differently. We have so many decorations that putting them all up in a rush can be very exhausting. By the end of it all, we're so worn out that we start feeling a kinship with Burgermeister Meisterburger.
So we're getting into the Christmas spirit earlier this year, and so far it's working nicely.
The only bad news there is that I haven't bought even one Christmas present yet.
You don't have to tell me, I know. That "Big Eastern Syndicate" Lucy spoke of to Charlie Brown is very disappointed in my laziness. I'm sure I'll make up for it before December 25th.
Abby is a little confused about Christmas. It's arriving a little early this year - even earlier than usual - since holiday decorating around here is exhausting. Always is it rewarding in the end, but there's so much to do that I actually lose sleep thinking about everything that needs to be done.
Since family is coming for Thanksgiving, getting everything up before then is an absolute must. And oh boy.... over the last few days I became so obsessed with non-stop decorating that I aggravated the pinched nerve in my neck. Thank goodness, after some R&R the other night, it's a lot better.
I'm very disappointed in my Christmas Village this year. Always is the village my crowning glory; the one thing I can actually brag about every year; but that just isn't the case for 2012. The trouble stems from not being able to find THE snow that I always use. It's extra fine snow, and it seems Michael's has tricked me this year. One of the stores didn't carry it at all, and the other one is selling something different. I thought it was the usual, but after opening the bag I discovered that this copycat snow is a fake! It's coarse and a lot larger. Not fine at all. Words can't describe how upset I am over this. All those hours upon hours of hard work was for nothing. A failure.
And to make matters worse, I discovered that the ONLY store that sold my favorite cappuccino has stopped carrying it. (See? Remember how I mentioned this scenario a few days ago? If it's something I love, the stores pull it off the shelf).
This is serious. This is so not a nice joke to play on me. Between the village snow disaster and cappuccino death, I'm feeling a little unstable at the moment.
Not good, but that's okay. There's still a lot of Christmas bling around here to distract me from this new cruel world which lacks posh fake snow and my favorite cappuccino fix.
I think I'll post all our holiday decor photos later this week. For now, here are pics of just some of Mom's newest supplies bought for this year's glitter houses and glitter boxes. A lot of this stuff was from World Market.
She got a couple of really cute boxes to store stuff in, too. Even I got some more pretty boxes recently - my #1 weakness - but I still haven't taken photos of them yet.
(I spy HIDDEN MICKEY EARS!)
I should probably post this next part on my other blog, but it's too beautiful not to share.
On Saturday, we received a really good thunderstorm. When it just started raining, Mom was ironing and mentioned she needed some hangers. I offered to get some, and while I went into my mother's closet to grab the hangers, little did I know that such a tiny and unimportant chore would turn into one of the most AWESOME and comforting experiences of my life!
As I opened those noisy double doors, I turned on the light and starting grabbing hangers when muffled within the clothes on the bottom rack I heard a familiar purr. It was Tiger Lily's purr. (My cat that passed away this summer). The one she always used whenever we entered her favorite napping spot/Mom's closet and woke her from her slumber.
Even though I KNEW it wasn't Wendy, I told myself that maybe she pulled a Superman move and rushed into the closet just as I entered it myself. Still, deep down I KNEW that I had just heard Tiger Lily. You don't have a cat for 20 years, and not recognize their purr after you thought you'd never hear it again.
So I started talking to her.... AND SHE ANSWERED ME BACK because immediately she issued the same purr again.
I then ran - well let's just say I walked really, really fast - to tell Mom that I had just heard Kitty Girl. On the way, however, I doubled-checked to see that Wendy Kitty was still asleep on the chair in the living room, 3 rooms away.... which she was. She was sound asleep.
So now I'm guessing that that really was Tiger Lily who I saw a month or so ago. I had gone into my room one night, and just as I crawled into bed - before I even turned off the light and turned on my laptop - I looked behind me and did a double-take when I saw a quick flash of Tiger Lily rushing into my room. I saw her for only a second. It was so quick, but I could clearly see the black and brown markings on her face.
Now, I am not a religious person, but I've always known there was life after death. That was proven to me when I was 7 years old, so it never was an issue of having faith in such a thing. Life after death was a fact. Likewise, I've also always known that our pets are still around after they pass away, but this was the first time I actually heard a pet and then had actual live interaction with them. It didn't last very long, but it happened. I didn't dream it, I didn't imagine it, I didn't misinterpret it. I wasn't even thinking about Tiger Lily, and yet straight out of nowhere there she is making her presence known.
I really wish that all the people out there that have pets who have passed on could experience what I did. Truly, it was the most amazing and unexpected occurrence. Everyone should be so lucky.
While I couldn't see her I did HEAR her. And actually INTERACTING with her.... well, any adjectives found in the dictionary cannot do that experience justice. It was all too surreal for words.
If you celebrated Halloween this year, I hope you had a spooky night filled with sugar highs and grinning jack-o-lanterns. Did you spy any cackling witches riding their broomsticks in front of the full moon? Were your neighborhood streets overflowing with trick-or-treaters clutching bagfuls of chocolate bars and Skittles?
We had a fair amount of those, as well as a few tractor beds filled with trick-or-treaters. That was a first in our neighborhood. I thought it was really neat!
What wasn't neat, however, was that there was a group of PROTESTORS screaming their opinions about how evil Halloween is over their megaphones. Thank goodness - as in good for them - they never did disturb the peace on our street, although I could still hear them. It was difficult not to, since this is a gated community and there are only so many places around here for them to go.
I just cannot understand people like this, trying to ruin a fun little holiday and blowing it out of proportion to suit THEIR brainwashed/uneducated agendas. Halloween doesn't have to be all Chainsaw Massacre-ish, ya know. It can be just campy and fun. I can only imagine how confused they must feel when those Peanuts holiday cartoons air on television every year.
First, Linus sits in the sincerest of pumpkin patches, waiting for something as blasphemous as The Great Pumpkin.
Then once December rolls around he's standing on a stage, telling Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about. How could Linus Van Pelt be the #1 fan of a corrupt pumpkin that brings toys to all the children of the world, yet also speak of angels and shepherds and goodwill towards men?
But seriously, I just hope these people stay off our lawn if we have a blow up Santa Claus in our yard this year. I have a sneaky suspicion that they think Santa and his flying reindeer are just as blasphemous as decorating your front porch with grinning jack-o-lanterns and black cats while you sing along to Monster Mash. The bearded man says "Ho-Ho-Ho" and climbs down chimneys into people's homes at night while they're sleeping for cripe's sake. How twisted, how immoral, how diabolical!
And did you notice the Victorian postcard I posted at the beginning of this post? You see those four little children clasping hands around that grinning jack-o-lantern?
Pray for them, folks, as these little girls are shamelessly pleading for you to come to The Dark Side. Come to the Dark Side, because they have cookies!
Sugar cookies shaped like ghosts and little green Frankenstein's.
Well--- Halloween Party Poopers aside, it was a pretty nice evening. Exhausting, but nice. Our neighbors really kept us entertained. Penny was in a really good mood. First, as the night is winding down, she whistles at us from across the street. Mom answers, and this is their short conversation:
Mom: "Yeah?"
Penny: "Do y'all still have candy?"
Mom: "Yes."
Penny:(short pause, then in a sing-song voice) "Trick or Treeaaat!"
Apparently, she ran out of candy before we did. We always buy too much candy, because some Halloween's the trick-or-treaters that come by just don't stop coming around... but that's okay. Even when it's a slow night, the neighbor's are always more than happy to steal some sugar loot for themselves.
After a couple hours our next door neighbor, Eric, came back to our house with his family to take pictures of his little girl in front of our decorations. Afterwards, he carried our Halloween Treats bag nearer the garage light so that he could see inside to search for more Skittles.
Skittles, which our other neighbor's daughter devoured earlier, while she was chatting with Mom while I set up the last of the decorations.
And I lost count on how many times I heard these two sentences Halloween night:
- "Man, y'all always have the best candy!"
- (Staring in awe at our bubble fogger) "I need that!"
Quite a few parents had trouble getting their kids away from that bubble fogger to do more trick or treating. They LOVED it! Of course, the adults loved it just as much. I guess a lot of people have never seen one before. We ordered ours online, at Grandin Road I believe.
I almost forgot, but this was pretty funny too. When it comes to the neighbors across the street, Penny always makes jokes about how she never sees me. If you can think of a joke... any joke... that could be used here I'm sure she's said it.
So Halloween night, Mom says that when she went over there Penny was in a real good mood. She looked at Mom and said, "God! I just LOVE Halloween! I love it because every year it comes, and every year I get to see Kristin."
The photos this year aren't so great, and we never did get around to buying a tall bale of hay to place the pumpkins on. (Thanks to the delivery people showing up extremely late, finally delivering the wrong mattress, and then us having to cancel the entire order). Also, we added more to the table but it was already too dark to take any nice pics.
I have to say that the table has looked 100 times better before. We couldn't find our Halloween tablecloth, and last year we gave away a lot of good stuff. (To make room in the garage since we had our house on the market at the time. I really miss a lot of that stuff). Even worse, I couldn't find my best Halloween cd. (My best Christmas cd is even missing). Our neighbor's were playing it though, since we copied ours to give them last year. Thank goodness we can now just make a new copy for ourselves.
Oh! I almost forgot to say that Mom made the awesome ghost that you see in the pictures. She made it from cheese cloth.
Is it just me, or does he sort of look like Snape?
You can't tell in the video, but Dad was lying on the ground inside the fog.
After using this rat a few Halloween's ago, and not finding it last year at all, imagine my glee when I discovered it yesterday. When I said it needed a name, Mom suggested "Merlin" at first but then changed it to "Wart."
I LOVED it! It was so perfect because, as Mom reminded me, in the story Camelot the magician Merlin was always turning Arthur/Wart into wild animals; hawks, fish, etc.
So why not a rat?
And now for my confession......
The day after Halloween I put up our Christmas stuff. All left to do now is the village, which I've only just started setting up, and the tree. I'm not sure if I'm gonna place garland on the stairs or not.
However, I AM pretty sure that it's time to add snow to my blog. And why not? It isn't exactly chilly here (last I looked, it was 90 degrees), so at least I can experience winter through snowy animated graphics.
). But November rain...... hey, isn't that a song from the 90's?..... didn't stop this gal and her Mom from shopping today. 
