It started in college – be inspired they said!  Look at all that’s around you!   Numerous years after graduation they are still right, and much comes under our designer noses that does turn our heads.

The glossy holiday ideas that roll out in August are no exception.   Every year I think I might try something new – wow, I’ll do a ‘natural’ Christmas this year, soak all of the greens in a bathtub and fashion wreaths and garland until the wee hours of the morning, complete with cranberry garland.  Or a themed tree for the kids, or finally steer the color palette away from the red and silver and step out on a limb…and then Thanksgiving Day comes…

This is the day in any working person’s world that is 1/2 vacation, half gluttony and mostly the only chance to get that tree up and the lights on before Dec. rolls in like a wave on the North Shore.   The same ol’ tree that has 2 branches loose gets yanked out of the attic, the faux berry wreath shows its 11 mo. in storage and somehow the mouse has been eating the wires on the lights – invisibly through the Rubbermaid Bins.  They all come out and within 2 hours are up as quick as the Grinch replacing the Who’s toys – with the grand ideas of ‘this year being different’ like a whisp of breath in the cold morning air.

Somehow the ooh’s and ahh’s of the smaller ones that are helping hands turn the designer back into regular person that thinks, how could I imagine getting rid of what I have?  As campy or not ‘designer’ it might be, it’s all come from someplace with a memory or started as a hand-me-down that has over the years become sentimental.   And on Jan. 1 it will all go back in its rightful place to start the cycle again.