Christmas Decor 2015

Hola darlings!

I am temporarily diverting from finishing the series of posts that led to the creation of my new living room earlier this year, so I can bring you the few simple things I've done around the house to introduce Christmas this year.

Here is the tree at dusk with the tree lights turned on; well, I know it doesn't look like dusk because of the flash on my camera, but it was:

I like how the ornaments "pop" more since hundreds of them are no longer competing for attention.  It works for moi this year. Next year, I may go back to my "more is better" tree decorating ways.

I realized just how much Christmas stuff I've accumulated over the years and after this Christmas I'm going to go through all of my boxes and clear out some of it.

This year I put the fewest ever ornaments on the tree since I bought it.  I did, however, go out and buy some long-coveted pearl strand garland.  I may never used my gold bead garland again and in any event half of it at least is going to the next Easter Seals pick-up.

This year, as last year, I stayed with the white feather boas I use as garland, but I left off the faux-natural long feathers that I would bow out around the tree in arcs.  I also only used half of my treasured Gump's feathered birds this year, but I made up for that by purchasing four larger sized golden feathered birds on clearance at Macy's and four composite crowned birds in a champagne color hung from a long ribbon.  I also relented and bought five faux-crystal and pearl stems to use as tree toppers.  So, I'm still adding to my collection of Christmas decorations - me bad!

I layered some ornaments in the center of the tree as per my usual practice to fill in the holes that show up so glaringly during the day with the tree centered on the large picture window with light pouring in, but not nearly as many as in prior years; this year I wanted to get the tree trimming done with a minimum of fuss and bother.  I added my four pearl starburst ornaments, my clear acrylic and crystal snowflakes and snowflake drops, my pearl and faux-silk florals, and a few other ornaments, and that was that.  Instead of six or seven boxes of decorations emptied, I used less than three.  Holy Hathor!

Here are some close-ups of some of the ornaments this year.  They stand out more, I think, because there is more "green" area exposed on the tree (gee, what a concept):

Me (I'm the golden-beglittered Nefertiti lower center left, ahem); Mr. Don's McLean kilt pin,
upper right, a sourvenir from Duarte Castle, and the beribboned heart in the middle.

xxx