We won't put up a tree and greenery till around the 15th -- but the past weekend seemed a good time to change out the fall colors and bring in the red and green. And strings of lights. And all the old familiar Christmas stuff. I think it was my DIL Aileen who posted a meme saying "Tradition is peer pressure from dead people" and I kinda have to agree. My family "did" Christmas but in a relatively restrained way. John's family, on the other hand, went all out, with bubble lights, clacking wind up toys, Christmas decorations everywhere, down to little decorative Yuletide covers for every doorknob. And red suspenders and tartan trousers for my father-in-law.
We don't go that far but every year I bring out the familiar family stuff -- the little Santa that John painted in Cub Scouts sits by the picture of his folks . . .
I hang up my great-grandmother's quilt . . .
... and the little Yule hanging John's grandparents bought on a trip to Scandinavia back in the Fifties ... and many, many more bits and bobs of Christmases past. It's all faded and time worn but then so are we. I made this pillow cover (below) in 1984 -- and every year it looks a little sadder. And every year I think I should make a new one and every year, I don't. I hope when it come time for my sons and DILs to deal with all this stuff, they'll have the strength of their convictions and toss out whatever doesn't 'spark joy.' I refuse to be the peer pressure from Beyond.
