I love the holidays. They really help get your priorities straight. Like how it’s important to take time away from work to spend with your family. And how no matter how much I love my family, I do not love them enough to go to Costco on the weekend before Thanksgiving or Christmas. “Sorry, sweetie, we don’t have a ham this year. Who’s up for Christmas day grilled cheese? I’ll draw a Santa on it with ketchup. Wait, hold on, I better see if we have ketchup before I promise that…”
Then there’s the joy of seeing your little child’s face light up the first time they see Christmas lights on a tree – at Target. I always look at holiday decorations at the store, but I rarely buy any to take home. Partly it’s the overwhelming amount of choices and the importance of what I pick. This will be the stuff my son remembers from his childhood Christmases. But standing in the store in October with a cart full of toilet paper and kitty litter, it’s hard to picture what it’ll look like in my house. “Hmmm, do I want the porcelain reindeer or the ceramic snowman to put on my mantle for a month and then store in the basement and forget we own it?”
And then there’s the cost of it all. I look in people’s yards that are beautifully decorated and I just see price tags. For the price of that wreath, mommy could have gotten a sweater and a scarf to match. What says “Happy Holidays” more than me in a new sweater? I feel like that’s something the whole family can enjoy.
And there’s all that time to pull everything out of the basement and hang it up. For the time it would take my husband to hang up those lights outside on a weekend, I could probably get him to go with me to Ikea to pick out curtains and maybe hang those up. I mean, do I really want to burn my “honey-do” time on stupid lights that will only stay up for 1.5 months? New curtains practically scream “Seasons Greetings.” Like, all four seasons.
So, instead of buying a bunch of decorations for each holiday, I like to take my son on a stroll through Hobby Lobby. I tell him it’s like the Zoo, but instead of animals, it’s decorations.
Me: “And here we have the elusive Halloween decorations in their natural habitat.”
Son: “Can we take some home?”
Me: “Oh, no, that would be strange. They would miss their family.”
Son: “Can we at least get a picture in front of them?”
Me: “Absolutely! And then we can print it out and put in on the mantle for a month.”
It’s the Halloween Exhibit!