Blogmas Day 1

"Day 1? But Summer, isn't this the 5th of December? Doesn't Blogmas usually start on the 1st?"
"Yes, dear reader, this is true. But I didn't think I wanted to do this until yesterday. So...."

Now that the fact that I'm a procrastinator/late starter is out of the way, let's get started!

Christmas Tree Envy

I love decorating for Christmas. If not the day after Thanksgiving then usually the weekend after I put on some Christmas music and put out all the decorations. Then that night I'll sit on the couch by the lights of the Christmas decorations and watch my first Christmas movie of the season.  This year it's been going a little differently. My mom stores my decorations so I've been getting them a little at a time and as of today I still have one more box to unpack and put up. So I've been getting my kicks walking up and down the street looking at the decorations others have put up. I love looking at the lights and wreaths and even sometimes those ridiculous blow-up decorations. I love seeing white lights around porch railings and electric candles in windows. I love seeing lights strung along a fence or in a front yard tree. Living in an apartment, I don't have a yard to decorate or even an outside. I don't have a balcony. So I have to live vicariously through other people's decorations. But one thing I've been loving the most this year? Christmas trees.

Not to sound like a creeper, but the thing I love most is getting a peek inside someone's window at their Christmas tree. Now, before you start calling 911, I will clarify that since I do a lot of walking I can't help but see through open windows at night to the lights of a tree in a corner or placed in the center of said windows. And no, I don't just stop on the sidewalk and stare. Please, I have places to go! Cats to see! In fact, there's a joke in my family that whenever someone moves in to a new place the first thing we do is figure out where the Christmas tree should go. (Seriously. My youngest sister moved about a month ago. She'll tell you.) Then I come home to my studio apartment and as I open the door I send out a wish that I won't find my little two foot tree fallen over. When you have a studio apartment there's not always a lot of space for an actual Christmas tree, so for the past few years I've put up a very small tree. I can't just not have a tree! Last year when it came out of storage it was missing one of the feet. So unfortunately this means that it is balanced precariously with something holding up the third side and therefore it is all too easy for the cats (well, one of the cats) to knock it over. I'm not even sure I'll put decorations on it, although it's pre-lit so at least there's that. All of this is to say that when I get to see a big, well lit, well ornamented tree I have a minute of tree envy. I have a box of tree decorations I can't use, although I hang on to them in the hope that some day I will have more space and a bigger tree.

I guess until that "some day" I'll have to make do with drooling in envy over other people's trees. So if you see someone standing outside your house, hands clasped before her heart, tears spilling out of her eyes, leave her be. She's just staring at your Christmas tree, remembering the trees of her past and dreaming of the trees of her future.