Thomasville Times

The longer one lives, the more accumulates



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When you get old, you get lots of stuff, whether you mean to or not, you accumulate possessions over time. It is just a byproduct of living so long.

You realize it more than ever as you get out your accumulation of Christmas decorations. The longer you live, the truer this gets until one day you just have to yell “Stop!” at your inner accumulator. I did that this year.

Since then, I have only bought one thing. I couldn’t help myself. It was small artificial centerpiece for my coffee table. I always loved live greenery until I started traveling so much for Christmas. My grandchildren got too big with too much Santa Claus to drag over the river and through the woods (to Grandmother’s house we go, get it?), so I had to start going to their places. I can’t play favorites, so I go to first one house and then the other.

I go to the nearest ones on the 23rd and then leave after Santa arrives on Christmas Day. I am to North Carolina by suppertime. I want to see them all and getting them in one place for the holidays is hard. It’s easier for the one of me to travel than all of them.

I say all that to get around to saying, I can’t have live greenery and do all that traveling. By the time I return it will be droopy and dead as well as have stinky water in all the receptacles holding the greens. I love the smell of live greenery so I just get a candle that smells like it and go right ahead.

My tree got up early this year thanks to a grandson old enough to drive and come hunting with a friend. I just went off for Thanksgiving and left it ready. It was already so well embellished with ribbons, lights and tinsel that I may not even add ornaments except around the edges so it looks like the whole tree is done. Once I turn on the lights, it sparkles just fine without the ornaments.

I still have three big plastic bins to go through to see what else I want to use. I have collected a whole slew of gilded and metal deer. I also have amassed a good many small assorted metal and enameled Christmas trees. I love to see both collections garnishing my mantles, tables, and corners.

When I was digging through my Christmas linens, I found some napkins, dishtowels and assorted things I had forgotten about that I will use again this year.

I took all my pretty cloth napkins, put napkin rings around them and piled them in a basket on a fancy tin tray at the end of my dining table along with some of my favorite mugs and a smell good candle.

My dining table is 144 inches long, so I have plenty of room for that as well 10 place settings of Christmas china. I used to buy that stuff back when I was young and more ambitious.

I mix Lenox and Walmart. A few years back, Walmart had these really pretty salad plates with deer on them. There is one style with a fawn under a branch and the other has a mama and daddy deer reclining together.

The Lenox dishes are painted in bright colors with birds on them. I set both of them layered on gold chargers. I learned that chargers are wonderful for saving the table linens from spills. It’s not just the children who spill. Adults are just as guilty. I don’t mind washing the spills, but I cordially hate starching, then ironing tablecloths.

Some women say ironing relaxes them, but heck if I believe it. Maybe they don’t have to fight with their linens to make them lie down on the ironing board the way I do.

The one collection I refuse to downsize is my Christmas books. I have all kinds. Right now, I am reading Southern Christmas stories by Harnett T. Kane, a man who has not written a book in 60 years. He writes about early Christmases in the South.

I find it fascinating to learn that Missouri was an early French colony like Louisiana and had mostly French Christmas customs.

Another one I am reading is Chicken Soup for the Christmas Soul. I have a sentimental streak that comes out in my choices of books and Christmas movies.

Christmas is my favorite season and I try to make it last as long as I can. The tree that went up before Thanksgiving will stay up until January 6, the traditional day of the visit of the Wise men.

I will close with a new favorite joke. Did you know that several towns had to cancel their live Nativity plays this year? They couldn’t find Three Wise Men!

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