Why Decorate?
Every year, especially when I stopped actually being at home for Christmas, I have asked myself why I am decorating for the holidays. But that question never stops me from doing so. Why? Because holiday decorations wherever they are, at my house, the houses of others, my community, even the stores, there is something about these end of the year decorations, whether they be secular or religious, that make me feel good. My posts for nearly the last week have all dealt with special warm fuzzy memories of my childhood especially, and of family traditions in general. These connect my past and my present. If for some reason I would not decorate, even a little bit, I think I would lose something very special about connections with my family and friends. My Santa collection shown in the image with this post illustrates this beautifully. I never really planned to create a collection of Santas. It just happened over the years. Yesterday I dug out the boxes that store these Santas and arranged them on my mantle. As I pulled out each one I was reminded of special memories. One year my younger son and I decided to paint Santa figures, and I bought several unpainted ones for us to do that. There are five of them in this collection. I added a bit of humor to one making him cross eyed, and every year when I pull him out, I just have to smile and remember the fun evening when David and I painted them. I have a wonderful carved Santa that I bought when my daughter and I did a Christmas Viking Cruise to the Christmas markets. Two are actually stocking holder Santas that I bought for the first Christmas we celebrated in this house. One of my Santas used to be my tree topper. Two others are limited edition ones, the Santa in the middle and the one with his legs hanging over the edge of the mantle. Two aren't Santas at all, but Santas elves that I thought were really cute and I bought at Ikea. I have several larger Santas. One is on my foyer table; another is on an end table in my living room, and another is on the hearth. All of these are special to me, even the one that got dropped last year and his butt was broken off. He is still in the group with his broken butt facing the wall. I don't know what will happen when I am gone to this collection of Santas that make my holiday decorating special for me. I would like to think that they will live on in whole or in part to continue to bring happy memories of me to others. I would even like to think that one of my children or grandchildren will want them and to even add to the collection, thus keeping the another reason of "why decorate" alive.