Jane being a Halloween baby, sort of, (a week before) she always gets black cats…all sorts of black cats,. And we have lots of Halloween decorations. We decorate for every season—but this is the beginning of the cycle. First comes Halloween. That will give way, on Thanksgiving Day, to Christmas decorations, when the black cats give way to Jane’s other adored animal—stags. Not reindeer. Stags. Deer with Attitude. 😉 I have snowflake fairys, Hallmark vintage, a large collection thereof; but Jane’s stags and my snowflakes and such predominate. Then Christmas specifically gives way to Winter: the tree goes by the end of January. Winter decor and oil lamps linger until the thaw, and then Spring decorations come out: spring flowers in vases and Flower Fairies that go with them. This year—well, Spring continued until Halloween. We were too frazzled to bring out the Summer Dragon (a Chinese red and gold medallion) and the summer flowers, real ones, often, in vases. We just had spring right through til now—and seeing Jane happily taking the leisure to decorate the living room in black cats and autumn leaves and ceramic pumpkins makes me remember how much I have to be thankful for, so it’s sort of Thanksgiving rolled right up into it all.
We are beginning the great Decoration Season…with Halloween.
by CJ | Sep 10, 2011 | Journal | 25 comments
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What a nice post. A happy time, indeed.
Email me an address where I can mail some very special handmade snowflake ornaments to you. I had a potted Norfolk Island Pine for almost 30 years (in West Texas, no less!)that I decorated every year for my xmas tree. Alas, Phred finally succumbed and Phred the 2 is a mere sprig on top of my fridge. When (and if — keeping NIP’s alive in this climate is tricky) Phred the 2 grows large enough to decorate, I will make him his very own set of decorations. In the meantime, I am in the midst of a major downsizing and these snowflakes need a good home. Reading your books has given me so much enjoyment, it seems only fair to return the favor.
somehow I’m thinkin you don’t get a whole lot of ten below weather where you are;) this time of year, I LOVE this weather.. but shudder to think that it is fleeting, and the firewood really should be getting stacked etc etc:)… had a great bonfire though. perfect weather ( not with the firewood:)… I love new england, for 10.5 months of the year:)
Mostly we get around 10 above, rarely 10 below. 😉
yeah, that’s still a wee on the chilly side. but no “three dog nights,” probably not that cold here, either. I know as much as I adore this time of year.. I also start thinking, blankets, firewood, shoveling the *&%$ driveway/ walk ( this is only “fun” the first 27 times of the season, and the number gets shorter each year:)… new zealand has really started to look a lot better the last few years:) anyone been there?
( fyi, for anyone who doesn’t know where that name came from- up north, how cold it was, would determine how many of the sled? dogs would be brought in for added warmth/ bed? warmth.. a 3 dog night was pretty bloody cold:)
Given that I’m from NZ originally, I feel up to a brief comment. Winter climate tends to cold and wet, for a given definition of cold, depending on where in the country you’re at. Further south you’ll see snow to sea level, maybe an inch or two, a couple of times a winter, while up north, snow is unusual – Auckland got its first snowfall in nearly fifty years this year. Inland, and up into the mountains, of course there’s more snow, although there are areas even there that tend not to get much – high desert climates due to rain-shadow from the mountains.
In other words, it varies a fair amount, but you (generally!) won’t see lots of snow.
With Jane healthy and happy, and the trauma of last summer behind — yes, we have much to be thankful for!
A certain feline or two, Trouble and Not-Alpha, trashed my cool autumn wreath (silk etc.), so I will need to do *something* for the upcoming season.
I may do some sprucing up for Thanksgiving, but will be lucky if I get things up for Christmastime.
However, greatly like the idea of the summer dragon medallions.
Presently awake for a bit before trying again to sleep.
We have this giant inflatable seated cat—which is sitting on the chest in front of the picture window. We are not the first Halloween decor up (a house on our walking route has already hung a skeleton) but we are certainly among the first. Halloween here in Spokane, which is a very outdoor city, will often see adults walking down the street in costume, and there are many elaborate lawn displays. We don’t go that far, but our inflatable cat is a Statement. 😉
So good that at last you have the peace of mind to enjoy the passing seasons! And your household has it’s very own black Halloween kitten.
I’m a newbie, here (I was introduced at the Gates of Ivrel), only about a week past. One funny thing I’ve noticed, not your flaw I’m sure, is that when I came here to look at the comments the itsy, bitsy avatar in the upper left “pointing to” my name changed from my Tiny Tux to Y-herself. It still says I’m “paul”.
And now it’s back to TT. I wonder if it would be that if the owner/moderator, CJ, is last poster then it changes, if it’s anybody else, then it stays our own. Curious bug.
I’ve noticed some odd migration of my avatar to the top bar (they fixed that) and other artifacts. They’re asking us to upgrade WP again: it’s a never-ending adventure. Welcome!
Hmmm, maybe putting up Halloween decorations now would be a good idea. I normally don’t decorate until two weeks before a holiday, so I don’t suffer from the boredom that sets in due to marketing and Christmas carols, etc. I am in the midst of a complete home cleaning in anticipation of knee replacement surgery on 3 October. I know I won’t be able to get around without a walker for a while after my left knee gets whacked. There just isn’t enough time in the day, and this week I’ll be travelling across country for the last time this year to discuss planning for an equipment test next spring. I’ll be lucky to complete kitchen, dining room, bedroom and bath, plus do the exercises necessary to strengthen my quadriceps so I can recover more quickly than the estimated four to six weeks. ReadyGuy is working full time now so that he can take a couple of weeks off after the surgery to be my cabana boy… Tell Jane, I’ve been practicing… “OH, MIIIICHAEL!”
Lol, Ready: we had no inkling of this! Keep us posted! I had a good friend have this done years ago, and she was up and walking in no time: took a bit to get rid of the walker, but she swore the pain was minuscule against what she had been having regularly before she had it done. She hit rehab with a vengeance and they had to tell her to slow down, she was so happy with the mobility.
Cabana Boy? Ready, I thought he was Barge Boy!
Halloween I ignore completely. I don’t even have any kids come by for candy…we are on a poorly lighted isolated dead-end small street and the neighbors’ kids are all grown-up and off on their own. Just not my holiday, although I’ve seen some blown-glass and ceramic pumpkins I might consider collecting along with fall leaf ornaments. (Like I NEED another collection…weak grin) I do put up wooden fall leaf door decorations (swags) on my front doors once the leaves turn and put potted orange,yellow and cream chrysanthemums on the steps. I like blue/purple asters too but I haven’t seen any yet this year to buy (grump) and the lavenders out there right now are still blooming.
I do have ornament trees that stay up all year…black iron trees over 6′ tall and decorated with themes. Hundreds of ornaments can fit on these babies. One tree-theme is chickadees (with a few red-breasted nuthatches tossed in) and the other is Siberian huskies. One tiny tree has cardinals and I want to to a 4th tree (small) in red foxes. The little trees are small enough to easily tote into the back bedroom for storage. There ARE snowflake ornaments in with both the chickdees and Sibes but they come off around February along with the red glass balls and the green tinsel banners I pool around the bases.
And yes, CJ…I need to get the chickadee ornament from the 2011 Hallmark collection!
Lol—I got into Halloween because Jane has a black cat and a birthday; and then we moved to a city where Halloween is as much for grownups as children: we will be totally understood if we don our rather-good pirate gear and drive (or walk) to the neighborhood pub, and we would not be the only ones—you can expect space aliens and 1930’s gangsters.
Christmas is another total blowout. We used to do hordes of presents, and now we just do one or two real presents and the rest may be kitchen spatulas or a set of hooks we just happened to need, but they come wrapped up, and tinseley, and fun. We have a woodland tree, full of animal ornaments, rustic in nature; and then the fantasy tree with parkly lights and our stags and fairies and snowflakes. Then there’s another tree in the kitchen/dining that just sparkles up and down its branches. We so love decorations.
Is Jane’s site having an Issue? I’ve been trying to get it to load for about 5 minutes now, and it just keeps cycling.
Halloween is when all our friends bust out the costumes, which are usually tied to whatever RPG we are playing at the time. Now that many of us are playing Star Trek Online, we have dug out our old Star Trek costumes. We go out to dinner Halloween night, and yes we DO look like a cadet review, from Wrath of Khan uniforms to classic to Next Gen to DS9. For several years during the Napoleonic Era campaign, we all dressed as members of the ship’s complement, H.M.S. Scourge. It might have been a good thing that we didn’t encounter you during that period, as our standing orders requested and required us to give chase!
IT’s loading fine now, at 2:09 PT.
Lol—I bet you delight the restaurant, and not alone the kids.
I’m trying to envision a snowflake fairy. Got any links??
http://www.etsy.com/listing/74746147/vintage-hallmark-christmas-ornament-ice
Thought the Halloween fans might like these….I’d even consider them as I love jewelry and wear it daily, including dangle earrings:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/60082008/great-pumpkins-carved-howlite-stone-bead
Etsy is a DANGEROUS place for collector-types. I’ve found so many awesome chickadee, red fox and Siberian ornaments via this site (sigh). I can even envision a pumpkin tree for this time of year since earrings make awesome tree ornaments, especially on SMALL trees where they aren’t lost in the scale. Oh…..the temptation!