Some say I have an obsession, some might say I have a problem. I just like to say I’m passionate.
About what?
Christmas Decorations!
I can spend hours in a store just walking around the Christmas section, and honestly sometimes the cheaper the store, the better things I find! In the picture below, all the Christmas items I got at the dollar store, besides the Christmas tree which came from my grandma. I’ll probably end up switching out the calendar for some other cute little thing I find on my next trip, but this is just enough to give the kitchen a little spruce up because honestly I live in an apartment and I do not have a lot to work with!
This door cover here could have been too much. BUT our apartment door is always so bare, and it’s annoying. I usually put some kind of holiday sign up or something but then I came across this, you guessed it, at the dollar store and I thought PERFECT. My mom really hates Christmas, and I figured she’d freak when she saw it up but instead she said it was pretty cute, so I was really winning all around with this cute pickup.
Speaking of this door drop thing, my brother constantly makes fun of me because he doesn’t understand how I can love Christmas so much if I’m not religious. So when I put this up, he brought it up again, and it got me thinking. How many different ways are there to interpret what the “Magic” of Christmas is? Some would focus on Religion, some on kids and family, but for me? I can’t describe it other than a feeling in the air. I’m not religious, I don’t have kids, I’m not close with most of my family anymore, and I absolutely hate snow, yet Christmas baking, decorating, music, movies, and the all-around feels is the best. I think it’s just another aspect of the holidays that is up for interpretation! To each their own.
My favorite part of decorating the apartment for the holidays was rearranging the “Living room.” I put this in quotations because it’s not really a living room anymore, I’ve converted it into my room, minus a door. Confused? Well to sum it up quickly, when we moved in here, we were basically desperate to leave a life, house, and person of complete destruction. The most toxic of situations. This three bedroom apartment was all we could do, and we were lucky to have just that. Problem? There’s 4 of us. Originally I agreed to simply share a room with my sister, it lasted less than a day, which I already knew was going to happen. We’re too different. So, since my family pretty much stays in their own respective rooms, I set up shop in the living room and slowly began to make it my own. The Christmas tree just brings it all together. The stockings came from target, I can’t remember where I got the tiger from, I think it was a gift, I’ve had it for years. The reindeer is from my grandma, and what you can’t see if an adorable standing tigger dressed in a Santa hat with snowballs.
Every ornament on the tree has some kind of a special meaning. Things we truly, truly love, people we love who we’ve lost are all represented in their own special way through things they loved. We’ve only had this tree for about two years, but I plan to add an ornament or two each year that means something to each of us and use fewer bulbs and more meaningful ornaments as the years go on. There is seriously nothing better than putting these lights on and watching a movie, or reading a book, or even doing my homework for class is better when the tree is on.
There is so much talk about what is the right thing to say during this time of year, and I say, no matter what you celebrate, no matter what you believe in, what you interpret things as, find the magic in it, and celebrate that. The magic of this time of year is something I think we all can agree on.
