IF IT'S WORTH DOING, IT'S WORTH OVERDOING

As Les looked at the table with more than 50 Santa music boxes on it, he let out an exaggerated sigh and said, "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!" as I'd quoted Mother's "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well!" earlier in the day.





My sister-in-law Sheila
used to say, "There's no such thing as too many Christmas decorations!" Les and Gerald disagree, especially after toting down more than 100 tubs from the attic and a dozen more from the basement. [No, sadly, I am NOT exaggerating; Les said he quit counting after 100!] The family room is the Santa Room, the laundry room is the Nutcracker Room, the kitchen is the Oreo tin room, the hallway is the Holly Room, the dining room is the 12 Days Of Christmas Room, the living room is the Sleigh Room and the library is the Coca Cola, Elvis and Train Room! Mother's room is the Cardinal Room, the bathroom is the Christmas Seashell Room, the hallway is the Basket Room, the spare bedroom is the Poinsettia Room, our bedroom is the Miscellaneous Room and Les refuses to have his room "decorated"!

There must be a tree in every room! The Santa tree fell over yesterday because the ornaments weren't well-distributed. The "Button Tree" is decorated with buttons collected since childhood with the top button being the cabbage rose from my wedding gown! The Nutcracker Tree sets on the hamper in the laundry room and I hear Les' grumbling about it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday because those are laundry days. I reminded him that there are only 4 weeks left until Christmas! On the kitchen table I have the Cookie Cutter Tree. The dining room has the 12 Days Of Christmas Tree; the library has a Coca Cola tree and also an Elvis Tree; the bathroom has a tree decorated with seashells. The living room tree has the Waterford ornaments in the front, Gerald's Star Trek ornaments on one side and my Wizard of Oz, Crayola, etc. ornaments on the other side. (Les said, "Sides? A tree doesn't have sides!"). Along the stairway are my mother's bubble lights and my sleigh ornaments.

As a kid we had one of those god-awful aluminum trees with the color wheel. That's why I've always had a "real" Christmas tree in the living room. Two years ago we bought an artificial tree and I hate it!


Last year, an acquaintance came to the house, and not knowing that I decorate every room, said, "OMG, I used to say that I thought the Grinch lived here because you don't have any Christmas decorations outside!" I said, "I have the sleigh on the porch and wreaths on the doors--I don't have time to do any outside decorating!"


Last year I promised that I would ONLY decorate the downstairs but Les caught me decorating the bathroom at 2:00 AM! He tried to extract the promise from me this year and he said he's calling Dr. Drew, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Dr. Kildare for an INTERVENTION!