Feel the Christmas Cheer, Dammit

Okay, I finally managed to make myself do some cleaning yesterday. Then I promptly negated all my good work by cutting up balsam fir branches in the house and strewing boxes of half-emptied decorations all over.

We go heavy on the candlesticks and evergreen boughs for decorating here at Blackrock. And yes, we use real evergreen boughs that I cut from a tree out back. They look MUCH better than the fake stuff, and smell better, too, but I will not lie--they are a pain in the ass. Besides the whole cutting of them, there's the sap to contend with (and of course you all remember my clever Heloise-style hint about removing sap from your clothes that I posted six months ago--RIGHT?), and then the branches slowly dry out and shed needles, leading to a solid inch of dead needles all over the furniture and floor when I attempt to remove the decorations in January. Good times.

My favoritest (yeah, that's what I said) decorations in the whole house, however, are these Santa hats that I bought at the grocery store one year. One says "Merry Christmas," and one says "Bah Humbug." To cover all the bases, you understand.

Today, I'm going with the one on the right.

What never fails to amuse me about these hats is their position on top of these priceless antique carved wooden heads from South America. You can't see it in the photo, but The Heads are kind of tribal looking, and have very stern expressions. And Santa hats. Hee.

Not so amusing, however, are the boxes still sitting on the floor in the living room that must be dealt with before the entire county descends upon our house tomorrow for the party. Having a deadline for Christmas decorating is kind of a buzzkill.

Do you have any holiday decorations up yet? Or do you hate the whole thing and wish to move to a Muslim country for the entire holiday season?