The not so pretty part

Christmas decorations, winter snowflake decorations, snowmen decorations, holly and ivy (not the poison kind). Reds and greens and blues and whites and golds and, and, and, and I love them all!

I love the lights and the glow. I love the memories that come with the ornaments. I love the music. There’s so much to enjoy about this time of year. So many varied traditions and reasons to celebrate.

But before all that can happen is the not so pretty part which is where I am today. The furniture gets rearranged. The shelves all get deep cleaned. The year round knickknacks go away. The dogs get upset at the commotion. The dust flies. I sneeze and cough. The room is chaos.

The table is covered with the “needs put away” stuff.

And through it all the youngest cat is unperturbed as long as she can watch “cat tv” aka the bird feeders.

Every year I tell myself that I’m going to do less this year, and then the days get shorter and the nights get longer. The temps drop colder, the fireplace gets lit and I start in……not reducing at all.

I have a shirt that says “just a girl who loves Christmas lights”. Yep, that’s about right.

But first it’s back to the not so pretty part, the deep clean before decorating.