While helping my mom bring up all the Christmas decorations from the basement the other day, it occurred to me that she goes waaaay overboard this time of year. I mean, seriously, this is the level of crazy cat lady, but with Christmas shit. Here are some pictures of the stuff I had to bring up from the basement:
These are all pieces to “her village,” as she calls it. Some company called “Department 56” makes a whole shit-load of these X-Mas village sets, all with different themes. One is like X-Mas in a 40’s city, one is like a country or something, or hers is a whole mess of stuff from Charles Dickens novels and whatnot.
Oh yeah, and those are two more plastic totes with wrapping supplies in them in the background. Mind you, none of these boxes or totes have the actual X-Mas ornaments in them. Those are three or four MORE boxes that I didn’t get pictures of, because they are still blocked in by other crap in the basement.
My mom was a little off about the tree. She didn’t have decorations everywhere but she got her tree on Thanksgiving Friday and didn’t take it down until Valentines Day.
If a lot of work goes into putting the tree up, I have no problem with enjoying it for a longer period of time. I put mine up after Thanksgiving this year, but have been known to have it up before Halloween, and some years not put it up at all. Depends on how the Spirit moves me. Before I got my new takethegarbagebagoffthetreeandplugitin tree, it took me 5-6 hours to put up my monster 9-footer, not including the decorations. That was just assembly and lights.
This year I decorated the tree and put a wreath on the door, but that’s it.
Hehe reminds me of one of my friends. His mom is probably 85-90 now. This was about 10 years ago. She has been collecting ornaments off all types for 75 years. Every year she puts up 10-15 trees, and decorates them with some of her thousands of ornaments in various caches.
They looked all fancy and antique and stuff. I made some off-hand comment about wondering how much they were worth, thinking she may have thousands or( tens of thousands of dollars) of crap. He got to thinking about it, and asked her and she said she had no idea what they were worth.
He didn’t know where to start but someones wife was kind of into ornaments and said she’ll ask around to get suggestions on an expert to appraise them. She came back smiling of success with a couple names, and said everybody she asked told her to talk to this one woman who knew more about ornaments than anybody in 500 miles, and went to every show(I had no idea there were trade shows for that) in the country.
There on the top of the list was his Mom’s name. :smack:
Aparently since his dad died she had been sneaking off around the country to buy more, but hadn’t told him because she didn’t want him to worry about spending all of his inheritance.
I had to look at the pictures to make sure you weren’t my sister. My Mom is also insane for christmas. She’s got several hundred santa clauses that go out every year, including one that is pure evil. I think whoever painted it was going for jolly, but missed it by thaaaaaaaat much.
Yesterday, on Dr. Phil, there was a woman who starts her Christmas decorating in October. Every flat surface in the house was decorated, even the toilet seat… with lights and motion activated carols. :eek:
I may be odd, [sub](don’t start.:D)[/sub] but I don’t feel comfortable having my butt sung to.
At least it isn’t tacky. It is nicely done.
One of my best friends loves Christmas. It is, and I quote, “Her Favorite Fucking Season Ever and I won’t let the other SCROOGES* in my house ruin it for me.”
*Her three sons ( 6-10 years old) and husband. She is surrounded by two wrestlers/dirt bikers, one WW2 fanatiche’s 10 and knows more about WW2 than you. Yes, you. and a dirt bike husband. Too many weeners at her house. One weener, really, is too many, but I digress.
So, I tell her, do the mandatory fun stuff. Crank up the christmas music and bark orders of just where everything goes while keeping an eye on your husband for sneaking off to some empty room to hide, eventually making it into the garage where he can work on one of his own projects happily until he is caught by her and forced to return to the *Mandatory Family Togetherness Time * And you’ll LIKE IT! until he can sneak off again. ( I called three times on that fateful day to gab with her knowing that her husband and children would take off like bats out of hell with the distraction from Mom Fuhrer. And they did and her husband still owes me.)
It is what Christmas memories are all about and will help with future therapy sessions.
Thank god my mom never blew a nut about Christmas. ( Now, the food at any get together, is a different story. )
My mom has a friend who takes down every single picture in her house and puts up a Santa picture instead.
Every year my parents send some of their friends, including me, a beautiful live wreath. I got mine last week, so I took down last year’s and put up the new one.
On another message board there was a post from a woman whose mom had made her help with the decorating after Thanksgiving. Every room in the house had a Christmas tree and themed ornaments. The kicker was the garage–the garage tree had tool ornaments and a duct tape garland. :eek:
Christ, I could be one of your siblings. My mom collected those for a while - the “New England Village” line mostly. I recognize that ship, and one or two of the others.
I helped her put up the churches in the dining room the other day - 8 of 'em. There’s a 9th somewhere…at least she’s stopped hunting them down on e-bay and is thinking of selling a few pieces, thank goodness.
Every year for awhile I would receive the generic knock offs of the Christmas village that you can buy at Joann’s for pretty good prices.
Every year I received a church.
Every year.
Me, the non-churchy person in the family given by my Mom, the ex-nun.
She says she wasn’t doing it consciously. I beleive her. Churches are always the ones left over after all the cutesy houses and store fronts are taken.
So, I told her that I was going to do some renovating and make one church a bar and another a strip club. With six churchs and no commerce there is no tax base for my little town. (It’s been brought to my attention that I need joos to really bring in the mula.) So, maybe I’ll start a nice little synagoge.
There are also no peeps or houses either, until I bought a castle (garage sale) and now I have a feudal system with no peasants.
I had a friend who had a simply enormous collection of this village stuff, or if not this exact one, one much like it. I will admit she had it gorgeously set up – they had built-in shelving all around their den, and she had the shelves lined with glassy fluff and the buildings on it, with lighting in and around everything. It took her two months to unpack and set up every year, and another month to take down. :eek:
They’ve since downsized, and I’ve often wondered just what she’s doing with her Christmas village now.
Ok, since two people have asked me if I’m their sister, I really do feel the need to clear things up.
I’m a dude!! Got a big ol’ penis, and everything.
Not to bash on your mom or anything, but if she had anything that matches my mom’s, then she was “mixing and matching” sets. Everything except for the trees and some people are from the one “Dickens” set. I don’t know what’s worse…that she does this, or that I know almost as much about it as she does!
Though it does make it easy to shop for her at Christmas…if I’m in doubt of what to get her, I just ask my sister (who also collects these things, but a different “set” (actually, I think hers might be the New England one)) which ones my mom doesn’t have and get her one of those.
And I guess it’s not as bad as starting to decorate in October, or having one tree per room or a hundred Santas everywhere, but keep in mind the village is the only thing she’s set up at this point. Sometime in the next couple days those three other totes and assorted boxes will be unloaded and the stuff therein put somewhere.
