Cedars, Shopping, Royals

It made Fio feel warm and fuzzy when she saw that even more cedars along DB Woods Road had been hung with colorful Christmas decorations. Dressing trees is a sweet thing for people to do--and to make it even sweeter, she's noticed that the decorations are gone by New Year.
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Fiorella visited a dollar store yesterday and filled up on felt stockings, Russell Stover chocolate bars, and some silver-sheathed pipe wire things that she's hoping can hold her tinsel ropes to the trees along the driveway. Today, she'll visit with friends in Austin, pick up earrings from the jeweler that she'll be giving to her senior daughter-in-law for Christmas, and stop by Walmart to restock el estantes de la despensa con Shredded Wheat (the shelves of her pantry with Shredded Wheat), which Target is out of and H-E-B doesn't carry anymore.
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A special Christmas gift to Fio is the news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are engaged. Fiorella likes happy endings, which she hopes they will have.  

Preparing for Christmas

Christmas season is officially here as far as Fio goes. She's pulled the trash bag stuffed with tinsel down from its garage shelf so she can decorate the trees lining the driveway, and she's settled on a design for her annual card (non-political this year). After she's finished off these two projects, she'll put the traditional tree together and lure people over to the house to help her decorate it. Then there are the window and fireplace decorations, the doorway swags, more outdoor stuff, and a second tree down in the south meadow. 

And, by the way, if you're looking for a good Christmas-themed book, try Jeanell Bolton's WHERE THE HEART LEADS. You can find it on Amazon for just $2.99.

Christmas Gift

Fiorella bought her granddaughter a Christmas present yesterday--her first piano, a roll-up electronic keyboard. Fio herself would have given her eyeteeth--if she'd had any at ten months of age--for a gift like this, but it wasn't till she was nine that her family acquired a piano, and although she's no concert pianist, she still enjoys playing and hopes Baby will have the same experience.

Speaking of Christmas, Fio's got to pull her decorations down from the garage shelf soon. The first thing to go up, of course, will be the tinsel garlands along the entrance to the driveway. Then Fiorella will put together her aging fake tree and load it with lights and ornaments, along the way, attending to swags and displays. Yes, Fio goes insane every Christmas, but it makes her happy.

Of course, one of the most important aspects of Fiorella's Christmas is composing the greeting card. Last year it had a political theme, but this year, it will center around Baby, which is only right. Christmas is a celebration of birth.

Holiday Preparation Reformation

Fiorella is planning to do something strange and wonderful this holiday season--finish Christmas decorations by the 17th. Usually she's hanging ornaments, flinging around tinsel, and pasting together paper chains till Husband finally pulls her off the ladder at midnight of the 24th, but this year, because she saved last year's snowflakes (for the windows), she doesn't have to spend a couple of days cutting them out, plus...she has a secret weapon. Actually it's four secret weapons. Austin son and his wife came over last Saturday and decorated the tree for her (THANK YOU!), and nephew Barrett and his wife are coming over today to help get the wreaths and swags up (BLESS THEM!)

Fio will still have enough to do to keep her busy because she'll be the one decorating the wreaths and swags, and she's also the one who sets up displays on every surface in the house. But what about Christmas dinner, you ask?  Well, Fio's only contributions are boiled potatoes and chocolate pudding. Husband takes care of the rest (THANK GOODNESS!).

Restored

Fiorella has been in a very stressful situation lately which has resulted in her boiling over with anger, not being able to sleep, running around like a chicken with her head cut off--the works--so today she took the afternoon off and put up her Halloween decorations.  A big metal jack-o-lantern went on the wrought iron table in the yard, paper pumpkins were stuck to her front door and selected side windows, and a swirl of cardboard bats were arranged so they moved from one front window to the next one. In addition, a small plastic skeleton now hangs from the mailbox (buzon) out on the road (camino).

And Fiorella is happy.

New Year's Resolution

Piece by piece, Fio is taking down her Christmas decorations.  The fireplace stocking are unhung, and the mantel has been liberated of its winter scene and miniature lampposts.  Red ribbons no longer bedeck everything bedeckable. The "Twelve Days of Christmas" bells are packed away. The multiple tinsel garlands have been retrieved from the driveway and the house, wound into sparkling balls, and placed on the dining room table, which functions as Fio's command central. The wreaths and the stray fake greenery fronds are stacked on the table too, and THIS YEAR FIORELLA WILL ORGANIZE AND LABEL ALL HER PRETTIES BEFORE RELEGATING THEM TO THE GARAGE!

Yeah.

Deja Vu Holiday

MERRY CHRISTMAS, RUSSIAN STYLE!

Dah, to honor her father's Russian Orthodox heritage, Fiorella leaves Christmas decorations up through the seventh of January.  Well, actually, she leaves them up a lot longer than that because she figures it took her a full month to put them all up, and she deserves to have a full month in which to take them down.

Enjoy!

Holiday Decorations

Fiorella likes decorating for Christmas, and she does a bang-up job of it.  Wreaths, red bows on everything bow-able, paper snowflakes she cuts anew each year, a tree that should be able to be seen from Mars--the works.  But what she doesn't understand is  the mindset of people, individuals, who spend thousands of dollars covering every inch of their homes and yards with displays that should be able to be seen all the way to Pluto.

Bling upon bling is not only wasteful, but tasteless, no matter what holiday it is.  

Christmas Snippets

The noose draws tighter--the Christmas Eve noose, that is.  Only seven more days left for Fio to decorate the house and the driveway.  Send your energy vibes her way.
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The yardman cut down two dead trees on our property, doubling our supply of firewood. It's the right thing to do.  Fio is always saddened by the sight of broken and fallen trees on the side of the road.  Leaving arboleal corpses to rot in the rain is a disrespectful and a waste of natural resources.
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Fiorella appreciates the fact that plastic ornaments can last forever, but she prefers the limited lifespans  of the traditional glass ornaments.  Their very fragility makes them more precious.

Holiday Schedule

Fiorella assured Husband she would have all the Christmas decorations done by the end of the week.  Then she lost yesterday to his medical procedure and a fall she took while she was trying to get up on an outside chair--one of those heavy wrought iron things--to rehang the plastic snowflakes that had fallen off a misshapen little front-yard tree. She hit the back of her head on the ground and twisted her right foot. The head seems to be okay, but the arch of Fio's foot is so swollen that she's holding onto whatever's handy as she limps around the house.  No ladder-climbing for her for a while.

Sigh.  Looks like the decorations are going to be the usual count-down to the wire.

Message

To my dear children:

If you ever have children yourselves, please tell them how, for Christmas, your mother would decorate every nook and cranny of the house with wreaths and bells and swags and Chinese birds and everything else she could think of.  And also tell them that she did it from love because she was that kind of person.

Mama

Christmas in March

Hooray for Fiorella!  She's used her breaks to take down Christmas decorations and now only has two swags, high ones that she has to use a tall ladder on, to go.  Plus the plastic snowflakes on the tree out front, of course--and the dining room table, which is piled high with everything Fio has taken down.  And the tree, which she has undressed, but not yet dismantled.

March is the latest that Fiorella has ever had her decorations up, but it's also the first time she's been riding a writing deadline for a 325 page novel.  And yes, she's gonna make it.

Three Excepts from WHERE THE HEART LEADS

They’d met when they were sixteen.  All the high school students from the Bosque Bend end of the county had been transferred over to the newly-constructed consolidated school, and it had been a hard adjustment for Rafe, especially since he’d had the flu and was starting the semester a week late.  His first day back, he’d been standing in the center of the front hall and trying to make sense out of the list the office secretary had given him when a beautiful girl smiled at him and asked if she could help.  

The girl had guided him to his history classroom, then hurried off down the hall with a smile and wave of her hand.  He saw her later that day in English.  She’d smiled at him again and he knew he was in love.  
*****
The Christmas season went into full swing the next day.  Cars sprouted felt deer horns out their windows and cheerful plastic wreaths on their grills, cedars along the road wound themselves with tinsel garlands, Santa Clauses sat on rooftops, reindeer pranced on parched lawns, and  a Salvation Army bell-ringer had stationed himself in front of WalMart.  

*****

“Moira, Suh-weetie Pie, I’m so, so sorry, but I won’t be able to make it to—uh—Texas

this trip.”

An airplane engine roared in the background, and Moira could hear a flight attendant instructing passengers on how to use the drop-down oxygen mask.

“You understand.  I’ve been talking to Covergirl about representing their line of skin products for—um—older women.  I’ve let my hair go white—it’s the new blonde, you know, and makes my skin looks gorgeous”  Her voice dropped to a whisper.  “Hold on a minute.  There’s a hatchet-faced stewardess looking my way.  I’ll have to put you down and get a Vogue to hide behind.”

Celebrating Holidays

Fiorella has decorated her front door with paper pumpkins and posterboard bats. And several more bats are flying on her front room windows.  And a pair of pumpkins and a bevy of bats are taped to her patio doors.  And soon she and Husband will come home from HEB with two real live pumpkins for her to carve into jack-o'-lanterns..

If Fiorella seems to be more into Halloween this year, it's because Friend Jeanell's characters in WHERE THE HEART LEADS will also be celebrating the holiday.  The story continues through to New Year's, so Rafe and Moira will get to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas too.

Nice of them to accommodate Friend Jeanell's plot.

Garage Fantasy

As of today, all of Fiorella's Christmas decorations are stored in the garage. Yes, Fio spent one month putting the decorations up, one month enjoying them, and one month taking them down.

On to bigger and better, like maybe she and Husband can get the garage itself in shape.  There's a great pile of boxes that have occupied far too much space ever since they moved in nine years ago. Who knows what wonders dwell within?

Post Yule

A piece at a time, Fiorella has started taking down her Christmas decorations.  She tore her paper snowflakes off the windows yesterday and the greeting cards off the double doors to the dining room this morning.  Tomorrow she'll probably take down the stockings over the fireplace.  Everything will get piled on command center, the dining room table, then carefully packed in what Fiorella hopes will be an organized fashion.

She's going to do something new this year--winnow her decorations.  Downsizing, as they say.  Fio is tired. Or maybe it's just the dregs of this horrible cold she's finally recovering from.  We'll see next year.

(Personal to Anonymous--Yup, RWA.  I'm easy to spot--but who are you?)