Scrooge

Ok. I have a confession to make. My name is Jessica and I don't decorate my house for holidays.

Are you still there or have you already deleted me from your blog roll?
(Don't worry if you haven't yet you still may later in the post.)

For someone who has a home decor/DIY blog you'd think I would be all over trying to decorate my house come the holidays. But nope. I'll admit I put up my Christmas tree the first two years in this house, but it didn't even make it out of the basement last year.

(Here's our tree one year when I went for a red and gold theme. 

That was our living room back when we had ugly berber carpet and the red wall.)

I'm not exactly sure why I don't decorate. I'm not a bah humbug who hates holidays or holiday decor. Don't get me wrong, I love when houses are decorated especially for Christmas. When I grew up at my parents' house they had 5 (yes, five!) Christmas trees in their house. One in the living room, one in the dining room, pencil tree in the foyer, wire tree on the porch, and a table tree in the dining room. I remember my parents would start as early as Black Friday and leave their decorations up past New years. My mom even had the pencil tree up for so long one year she decorated it for Valentines Day. I still love going to their house for holidays because they really go all out. She really makes it feel like Christmas. I'll be sure to snap  some photos this year.


Because I've always had younger cousins, my mom is sure to make a lot of the decorations pretty kid-friendly, too. I'm sure Lucy is going to love going over there for the holidays. 

Jordan being the kid in this photo.

Sidenote: I know this is kid-friendly decoration abuse. This is what happens when you leave my dad and Jordan with letter magnets and a camera. Don't worry, we didn't let any of the kiddos see it. (I'm sure you all have deleted me from your reader by now...)


Back to my non-decorating issue.

Part of it is that I really don't own many decorations. I have a few hand-me-downs, but not much. I also have a few items that I've seen places like the Christmas Tree Shop after the holidays have passed for dirt cheap. I would much rather have decorations that I made myself, but I never seem to have the time to make them.

Maybe I'm somewhat afraid of the daunting task of taking out the decorations and actually putting them up. I remember my mom taking tubs and tubs full of decorations out of their attic and would spend all day wrapping up her "regular" decor pieces and replacing them with holiday decorations. She would take wrapping paper and wrap all the pictures hanging on the wall, along with the glass inserts in the coffee and side tables. The cabinets in the kitchen would serve as the base for an entire winter scene filled with houses that light up and a blanket of cotton stuffing made to look like snow. I remember it taking my dad over an hour just to set up the tree (we always had a fake tree) because he would perfectly space every branch. And my mom wrapping empty boxes to put under all trees except the one that stored the real presents.


I think another challenge for me is finding (or making) tasteful decoration pieces that match the decor of our house. 

The past year I took a "pregnancy pass" on decorating. (What was my excuse the first two years?) And this year I don't see myself going all out either. But come next year, Lucy will be almost 18 months and I will definitely need to step up my holiday decorating for her. I don't want her to think her mom is some holiday grump that doesn't decorate. I want her to get excited the way that I did when I was little and my parents busted out the tubs o' decor. So this year I am vowing this: once the holidays end I will take advantage of clearance sales and stock up on decorations while they are 75% off. I will also spend this year getting inspiration and using Pinterest to gather my ideas so that come the holidays next year I will be ready. (Follow me on Pinterest to see what I've pinned lately!) I will have tons of crafts planned so Lucy and I can make next years decorations. 


Wreaths for every occasion. Garland hung everywhere. Festive table settings.


I'm actually getting excited at the thought.


Is anyone still reading..?