October has seemed like a strange month for me this year.
I’m used to it passing by in the blink of an eye, but have instead found myself in this strange bit of limbo.
Maybe it’s just my perception of time, but it doesn’t feel like much of anything was happening before the Rice Festival.
And now that the event is behind us, it feels like time has picked back up to the point where Halloween is roughly a week away.
The next big holidays after that are Veterans Day and Thanksgiving – then it’s Christmas.
Now, we’ve always been great holiday supporters as a whole family, but Halloween has been my absolute favorite for decades.
I mentioned a few weeks ago how my sister Ashlee helped decorate inside the house with me and I get a little kick out of seeing all the light timers go off at night.
However, the only downside to all of these decorations is that mom has been wanting to already put up her Christmas tree for the year.
For over a week, Ashlee and I had to remind her of the traditional timeframe for tree erections – Thanksgiving Day or the day after.
Those are the only earliest available options we’ve ever used!
Unfortunately, mom has decided to do an entirely new tree theme this year and she’s itching to get her flocked tree out sooner rather than later.
Instead of one of our usual décor ideas like the winter wonderland or Renaissance themes, mom has opted for “The Nutcracker.”
Ever since we saw the ballet two years ago, it’s been on her mind and I can’t deny that it won’t be an awesome tree.
I just don’t know how well it’s going to work with her flocked tree.
At the very least, she isn’t changing up my kitchen tree theme, too.
Unfortunately, she also negotiated our annual tree assembly for the second week of November as long as Ashlee is free to come home and help.
After all, it’s a huge undertaking to get the boxes out of the attic and dismantle the assorted Halloween displays then pack those back up for the year.
Naturally, we then have to get the Christmas décor down and that’s at least triple the boxes than the Halloween ones, too.
Personally, I’m more than OK with just leaving my Halloween décor up until Thanksgiving Day!
But, we all know that if mom isn’t happy then everyone suffers – so, I’ll probably start collapsing the sprawling ghouls and goblins into piles sooner rather than later.
However, I’m saving all the porcelain and glass breakables until the very last minute.
Over the years, I’ve lost a lot of decorations to the pets or by rushing around doing too many things at once.
So, now I pre-plan and start migrating things slowly to one collective spot with bigger displays like my Halloween tree or the ceramic village taking the back seat.
The good news is that Ashlee and I already sifted through the damaged items or the ones we’re no longer interested in using again.
That means it should go a lot smoother putting decorations away than staging them, right?
I suppose I’ll let you know how it all goes down when we get closer to the actual main event.
