When Christmas Isn’t Home

Back in our younger days when we lived in Florida and had to entertain crowds of friends and relatives at Christmas, we used to rent an oceanfront condo for the week. We’d decorate the condo instead of the house, and have our Christmas there. Not being a big fan of doing a lot of actual decorating myself (if I had my d’ruthers all I’d have are pegs on the wall and bare furniture), and given the fact that as clown-elves we were usually working exhausting mall shifts right through Christmas Eve, this worked out fine for me.

Working at malls isn’t the same thing as shopping at malls. Which I never do, because everything at the mall costs three times what it’s worth so that mall shops can pay rent on the high-dollar property and hire expensive entertainers like us to bring in the crowds. I’ve always been of the strong opinion that elves should be able to postpone Christmas until New Year’s without suffering any ’spirit’ penalties (and coincidentally cashing in on all the after-Christmas sales when everything costs half or less of what it cost the day before Christmas). But of course it’s never actually works out that way.

Then 15 years ago our son died, our business (he was a partner) collapsed, and we moved our broken hearts to a small mountain cabin to mend and figure out a way to start over. Our daughter and her 2-year old son moved with us, and we’ve been here ever since (and we adopted a few along the way). Until this year we’ve always decorated the cabin - it’s definitely made for Christmas! - even if we were planning to be elsewhere for the actual holidays.

Well, I probably shouldn’t say “we.” Elder daughter is the decorator in this family, and she’s nothing like me. She’s a regular pack rat about ’stuff’, a dedicated thrifter and recycler with honest-to-gosh mounds of ’stuff’ I’d have tossed years ago, and collects dust-catchers obsessively. She’s also a Christmas nut. She removes all the everyday dust-catchers on the shelves and mantle and walls, replaces them with an even bigger collection of Christmas dust-catchers. She has dozens of ceramic, plastic, resin and wax Santas. She has dozens of angels too, and both these collections come in black and white (ethnically speaking).

She has Christmas candle holders and Christmas candles and Christmas artwork for the walls. She even tapes Christmas hats on the collection of school picture 8×10s of our grandson. We’ve more Christmas ornaments than can be hung on the 15-foot tree that usually graces our cathedral ceiling living room. So she hangs ornaments on the fake evergreen garland complete with mass amounts of white lights that drapes the stairway to the loft, the mantle, the double doors to the deck, the windows, the kitchen beams, the front deck rail, the eaves of the roof, and the stairs to the basement.

She has Christmas curtains, Christmas rugs, Christmas throws, Christmas cushions, Christmas coffee cups, Christmas cutting boards, Christmas dishes, Christmas salt and pepper shakers, Christmas serving bowls, Christmas shot glasses and Christmas tablecloths. This little cabin turns into a regular Pigeon Forge-style All Christmas All The Time shop for three weeks a year, and I must admit that since I don’t have to do the heavy lifting, I’ve grown quite accustomed to it. Even fond, if missing it this year is any indication.

But my baby sister wrote a couple of months ago that she wanted to come with her husband and three children to spend Christmas this year with us. Which I certainly couldn’t refuse, since we lost a sister this past spring and family is important. The daughter of the sister we lost is also coming for Christmas with her fiance, younger daughter and her husband may come from Indiana, and we’ve friends from West Virginia and Cleveland who will be here the day after Christmas on their way to Florida. There simply isn’t enough floor space or padding in my 28′x28′ cabin to put that many people up, and it’s too cold to make them all pitch tents in the yard.

So I arranged to borrow our older sister’s new log McMansion in a gated resort community on a lake just south of here. She and her husband are out of the country for two more years, we’re the caretakers, and their retirement home has a lot more floor space (plus 4 bedrooms and 3 baths) than I’ve got. Thus my elder daughter has been packing all our collected Christmas stuff into her car and taking it to the McMansion. She’s very excited to decorate (it’ll be gorgeous, I’ve no doubt) and get photos for her portfolio. And this sort of thing could be a real money-maker for her one of these days. She is very good at it, given that theater tech is her degree and that’s all about sets and stage dressing.

Plus the McMansion’s got big, really cool brand new appliances - including fancy ones - plus a real dining table and a stone-top L-shaped island/bar that can easily serve 30. Christmas dinner will be wonderful, we’ll film us all around the 20-foot tree singing carols and beam it overseas so big sister can see, we’ll have lots of presents and lots of music and watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” every 6 hours or so, and have a truly memorable Christmas.

Meanwhile, my cabin looks just like it always does. Drab and overly dusty, not a hint of Christmas. Sure, we’ll have to come back every day (it’s only 17 miles) to feed the critters, and when the northern visitors come we’ll have to come back for the annual Kudzu Open disc golf championship.

Ah, well. I’ll just remember that we used to have Christmas somewhere else every year, so doing it again isn’t a big deal. When it’s over I’ll post some pictures of how the decorating turned out. It’s never too early to start obsessively collecting Christmas stuff for next year (while it’s on half-price sale!).

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Filed under Crafts, Decorating, Family Gatherings, Family Life, Holidays |