Christmas 2021

Forgive Me Opal May

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RDP Wednesday: SCINTILLATE 

This year when I put up my tree, I had a plan- a vision I was pretty excited about it.

I was going for 1940’s vintage tree because I liked the warm colors and the funny shapes that some of the glass ornaments were crafted into. Also the Santas were kind of deranged looking. They had those pointy beards and little beady black eyes.

I was ready to decorate.

So I was in the middle of choosing some new ornaments ( on line of course ) to add to my older collection when my dog Hamish Macbeth started bringing me some of his toys to play with. When I looked at the stash he had left near my chair I saw his plushie fish, crab, seahorse  ( I call it his Sea Pony and no I don’t know why ) and a clam.

I put out a toe and made the clam squeak and then it came to me in a flash- a Sea themed tree, how great would that be?

I changed my plans.

I surfed around and before I knew it I had found the perfect set of ornaments. They were blue and silver. There were clams trimmed with pearls and Seahorses ( sorry, Seaponies ), there were fish, starfish  and even a sparkly whale.

And then out of nowhere I decided to add an ornament with a bees.

In addition to that, I decided to use my Krampus tree topper ( well, he wasn’t supposed to be a tree topper, he just ends up there ) and hey while I was going off the rails I  decided I would put up my Wolf ornament too.

It all made sense at the time.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso

A few days after I put my tree up I was going  add a picture of it to a Christmas Memories page I like to visit. I was pretty excited about that because it’s a fun page.

 But I realized  as I looked at those lovely trees that people had decorated with love and talent and vision, that I may have had a vision too – with my Sea theme but what I ended up with was a 1970’s truck stop waitress look so I named my tree Opal May.

Opal May seemed to be a great name for a 1970’s truck stop waitress.

And no,  I didn’t post my tree picture. I mean, well, I just didn’t.

I looked at the picture I was going to post  and saw that my tree was crooked and I had forgotten to add a string of blue lights, you know because it would have made Opal May really sparkle. The idea I had for my lights was stars twinkling on the ocean at night feeling. Lord. What was I thinking?

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Yeah. It was a mess.

But my dog loves that tree. He keeps leaving his toys around it and he wasn’t whizzed on it once. He has wagged his tail when he was next to the tree and sent some of the baubles flying across the room but I put the ‘Labrador tail friendly’ ornaments on the lower branches so that’s okay.

Poor Opal May.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my tree and what I probably like the most about it is that it isn’t perfect and it has a good story.

I just wish it wasn’t titled to the side because it looks like it’s trying to run out the sliding glass doors and it’s hard to not take that personally.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

 

Winter Windows

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Enjoy the view!

Photographer Unknown

December 21, 2021

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Happy Winter Solstice!

Anita Marie

Hamish Macbeth’s Pawprint by A.M. Moscoso 2018

Meet Opal May

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Word of the Day Challenge: DECORATE

I have zero fashion sense and absolutely no sense of style.

My face is a blank canvas that I try to brighten up with makeup but that has never

worked for me. It’s the same face with splashes of color-expensive splashes of color.

 

When I have to ‘decorate’ myself I look into the mirror, grit my teeth and hope for the

best- the best that I can pull off in five minutes, because that’s all the time I’m willing

to put into it.

 

On the other hand, I used to decorate my home for Halloween and Christmas- and that

is something I really worked on  with a lot of  enthusiasm.

 

I asked for advice about lighting, I shopped for ornaments, I cared about color schemes

and where I should place each of my new found treasures.

In the end, nothing I did ever really came together. I got tired of trying. But I did it

anyway, year after year.

 

Last year I made myself care about decorating for Christmas  because I knew it was

important to try to maintain some

kind of normal so that I wasn’t consumed by our abnormal ‘normal’.  My decorating was

an exercise.   In a word it was uninspired.

 

This year I worked a little harder at it because I wanted to, but I was horrified to find

that after all of these years of trying

I still  have zero fashion sense and absolutly no sense of style and the themes I reached

for  this year were  pathetic looking,  I mean I know what I wanted to show and why I

chose the colors and ornaments I did use, but woof.  It was an epic fail.

 

Sad to say, despite my best efforts my Christmas tree looks like a pile of  blue cat sick

and on top of it all I used  the  wrong kinds of lights and I think it’s crooked too.

 

It’s a shame because this year I   jumped into the festivities because I actually wanted

to celebrate the holidays and have some fun.

 

On the bright side-

Who knows? Maybe that’s my thing, taking a poor little tree and making it look glittery

and unhinged. If my tree were a person she’d be like a waitress in a 1970’s

movie about truckers  and she’d have a name like  Opal May.

 

Now that I think about it, maybe that’s my thing- always missing the Christmas

decorating mark but ending  up with a pile of glittery artistic cat sick that you don’t

want to lookat but you can’t help yourself so you do- it like being drawn to check out a

a car crash at the side of the road.

 

I can live with that because you should see what I do to my Pumpkins at Halloween- I

carve them with big knives, I cover my mistakes with tooth picks, dental floss and

tooth paste and I guess I don’t have to add that I don’t use patterns.

 

After writing this I have to say,  I’m looking forward to what I can do next year- it’s

going to be a challenge to  outdo Opal May.

I should probably get to work on that.