I reminded myself sternly that it's only August, and that sort of nonsense wouldn't be tolerated until at least 30th November, but my little brain wouldn't give in and occupy itself with anything more useful.
This Christmas is lining up to be the first one I will have ever spent away from my immediate family. I've spent a few years where I've only been with a few members of the clan, but generally it has been a home affair. Some years we join forces with another branch of the family, other years we keep it small. This year, I will be elsewhere (or so we hope, visas permitting...).
The reason it stuck in my mind so insistently was the realisation that I am poorly equipped for Christmas. My parents have been collecting Christmas decorations for decades, and have ample supplies of fairy lights, ancient tinsel, fibre optics, baubles and bells and whistles. Every year, the attic vomits forth a mountain of boxes of decorations, and we spend a couple of days decking the halls with boughs of holly - literally.
This year I have no holly (and no hall to deck, so never mind). No fairy lights. No baubles, no bells, no whistles. Not even a sad strand of tinsel. I am at square one for Christmas.
The good news is that we found a Christmas tree stand under the weeds in our back yard, so we at least have that.
Naturally, faced with a Christmas vacuum, I turned to the only place I could: Pinterest.
There is an abundance of ideas. Some are marvellous, some are... deranged? Some require such an investment in materials that you might as well buy ready-made decorations and save yourself the bother.
Most affordable seems to be home made salt dough ornaments, and they seem to be so simple that even I will find it hard to screw them up. I might even splash out on some cans of metallic spray paint. I'll need ribbon, too.
I also fancy some of the woven and folded paper decorations, although I disapprove entirely of any that use pages from books. Don't people know that books are sacred?? I've seen some very fancy colours being used, but being a traditional old fart, I will probably be using good old red, green and gold for my Christmas palette.
I really need to get out more.
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