My birthday is coming!  Oh yes it is!  I can hardly wait because not only am I turning either 29 or 30 (I never remember and have to ask Husband, who for reasons unknown knows my age when I do not) but once I’ve turned whatever-age-it-is I am freed from my promise to hold off on decorating and I can set up the tree and all the decorations and holy shit it will be Christmas town around here let me tell you!  Here is the list of what I do for the holidays:

1. Set up the main tree, a fakey called Mr Castlegar.  Yes I named my plastic Christmas tree.  What of it?  Mr Castlegar gets a rather elaborate lighting treatment before being utterly drowned in sparkly ornaments. Strangely I do not have a tree topper… currently I’m using a big starfish ornament but since it doesn’t light up it’s not quite right, you know?  But it is a star.  And ocean themed, which goes with all my squid and octopus toys that go on the tree.

2. Set up the auxiliary tree, which Husband wanted to turn into The Battle Tree (using toys to create an epic yet festive conflict between all my squid toys and some GI Joes), but which I executed veto over and turned into The Bird Tree instead (it gets white lights, red beads, and lots of little bird ornaments).

3. Each tree gets a skirt I quilted myself.  They were among my earlier efforts and they aren’t great but no matter!

4. The mantle over our fireplace is dressed.  This involves a bunch of shiny “nut” ornaments (acorns I believe) hanging on ribbons from under the lip, and the very special NOEL candle holders that belonged to my gramma and are part of an extended family tradition. Every year someone rearranges the letters so it spells LEON which is considered HILARIOUS because Leon is a Jewish name, ha ha!

5. Miscellany.  I have a Santa to place, and I plan to acquire a wreath to put on the door.  I also have some Christmas themed towels for the main bathroom and tea towels for the kitchen and a few extra ornaments to hang here and there on the plants, etc.  And I’d like to get a nutcracker too.  Hmm, I also don’t have any of those heavy things you hand stockings from.

6. The Christmas music comes out.  I particularly enjoy Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and John Denver’s Rocky Mountain Christmas.  Yes I know.  We are all slaves to our childhood memories and it shouldn’t be held against us.

7. Roughly three weeks of gazing at the lit tree after dark every night can commence!

8. On Christmas Eve, I will change the bed linens so we get this combination: Green and gold brocade-style duvet, white sheets, red pillow cases.

I can hardly wait!  So hurry up and get over, birthday!