Holiday Treasure

Last weekend the girls and I got our Halloween decorations up. I have many Halloween decorations, about five good-sized plastic containers. I have two containers of Thanksgiving stuff, some of my Halloween stuff carries into the Thanksgiving season. It is sort of like fall stuff or harvest stuff. Plain pumpkins, leaves, stuff like that. I have six or seven containers of Christmas stuff too. I usually get up the Halloween stuff right after Catherine’s birthday. I was a little late this year because I was busy. I will put up the Thanksgiving stuff right after Halloween and the Christmas stuff up over Thanksgiving weekend.

I don’t know why I have all this holiday junk. I guess it started when I was living in Lakeside. There was a woman in our building who I hated who was always trying to have better stuff than me. I could not let that happen. Back then, I had decorations for every holiday. I had St. Patrick’s stuff. I had Easter stuff. I had red, white, and blue stuff that I would put out for Flag Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. I had Valentine’s stuff too. I still have some of it. I just do not always have time. After we moved to Wisconsin, I got a lot of my harvest stuff. They are really big on that. They have corn mazes and pumpkin picking. It is neat. It is one of the few things I miss about Wisconsin. (I do not miss anything enough to move back there.)

Now I just do Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was reminded this morning about how my Grandma would have had the Halloween decorations up by Labor Day. You know if you went to her house by Halloween, the Thanksgiving stuff would be up. Moreover, I can guarantee you, if you were at her house on Thanksgiving Day; there would be a Christmas tree up. She sure did love those decorations. She even put up a fake cardboard fireplace one time. And you better believe those decorations were taken down and put away by noon on December 26. I however, will probably leave mine up until New Years.

Speaking of Grandma’s house, I will probably be heading off to visit my Grandpa this weekend. Carolynn and I are going to take him some frozen homemade casseroles and cook him some dinner. We have more fall recipes to try out on unsuspecting family members. I think I want to try to make bread pudding, so if anyone has a good recipe, let me know. Someone voted for it in the poll, so maybe that person has a good recipe.

On a final note, I started my class this week, Creative Writing for TV and Cinema. It seems pretty easy, for me anyway. However, we are just getting started. I love it though. Carolynn was sick today. She stayed home reading all day. Look for a new Carolynn book review soon. The book she is reading now I bought her for a Halloween story. It is called The Ghost’s Grave. Look for the review soon. Catherine is getting a new shorter hair-do this weekend, so look for pictures of that coming soon. Until then, enjoy this lovely fall painting.

Poplars (Autumn) 1891
Claude Monet