Holiday Season Tree – Halloween

Last year I decided to try decorating the Christmas tree for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Years. It may sound odd, but it works extremely well. Here are a few arguments for pulling out the tree on October 1st and changing up the decorations on the day after each holiday.

  1. Artificial trees are expensive. Even the cheap ones are $100+. I’ve seen some listings for close to $1000 and I’m sure there are more expensive options out there. If I’m going to spend the same amount of money (or more) that I spent on my new couch for a holiday decoration, then it only makes sense to find ways to use it more often. Why let it collect dust in storage for 11 out of every 12 months?
  2. Options for decorating an apartment. As an apartment dweller, the amount of space I have to decorate during the holidays is minimal. All apartments have rules and limitations on what can/not be done to their walls and in the area just outside your front door. In addition to that, general space in an apartment tends to be limited. Finding a spot for the tree is a challenge, but it’s less of a challenge than trying to find places for statues, Knick knacks, wall hangings, etc. Most people have a spot where the Christmas tree is set up every year, so taking that space and putting that same tree in that designated spot is reasonably easy. Plus, there’s always under the tree! In the photos below, you’ll see how things that can’t be placed on the tree, can be placed under it, and the whole thing works visually while remaining contained in a manageably small(ish) area.
  3. Storage: Ornaments are small and tree lights and other decorations don’t take up much space. That, combined with the tree that is already taking up storage space, is a lot easier to coordinate than a misc. collection of holiday specific decorations.
  4. Themes: Ornaments are available in every possible style and theme. It’s easy to find characters from movies, old cartoons, TV shows, legends and myths – practically anything you can think of has been turned into an ornament by someone, somewhere. I’ve started keeping track of the things that I address/represent during each distinct holiday. Since the theme changes each month, beginning October 1st and ending the first week of January, that provides plenty of room for growing a meaningful (to me) collection of ornaments based on each holiday’s theme. As time goes on, I have the ability to change those themes by changing a few ornaments – while keeping the space taken up in my storage area to a minimum.

For an example, here is this year’s Halloween tree. It’s heavily focused on Halloween themed shows that I like, costumes, trick or treating, dragons, and transformations. Last year I covered the entire thing in little plastic monarch butterflies, but they were a bit transparent, and the colors weren’t bright enough, so they just blended into the tree. Now I have a few brightly colored ornaments that represent butterflies, moths, and bees, which works.

In the future, I intend to add homage to the Salem witch trials and witch burnings in general.

I really like the way ancestors are honored during the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday, but I have not figured out how to transform that general concept into my heritage and traditions. Someday I will, most likely, start adding ornaments that honor people on my genealogical family tree.

Books are Fragile

But books are so fragile. Paper and leather and wood cannot stand up to fire or water or time.

And there is one thing I know is true in this world: only what is remembered survives. Only what is written has a chance in the future. People forget. Rivers rise. Stories and songs are snuffed out every time some town takes a fever or loses to a man with a little power.

Destruction is common. Creation is rare.

Because I know this truth, I must do two things. First, I must collect and keep as many pieces of record and evidence as I can, to ensure that they do not pass out of this world. Second, I must write my own record so that it survives. I must write the people in my life into the record as well, just as the Midwife did, so that they survive, too. I sometimes do as she did, putting the book into their hands. I write it for them. I did it more when I was younger. I trusted too much then.

The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere 3) by Meg Elison

Snow is Magic

Jenna and Beetle caught Septimus’s good mood. The gurgling of the stream broke the oppressive silence of the forest, and the yellow glow of the lantern illuminated the frosty snow before them. The combination of snow and lanterns made all three feel happy. For Jenna and Septimus, it reminded them of the time they had spent the Big Freeze together at Aunt Zelda’s—a time they both looked back on with happiness. For Beetle, it recalled Snow Days when he didn’t have to go to school—days full of possibilities when he would wake up to find that snow had completely covered the windows and his mother had lit the lantern and was cooking bacon and eggs over the fire.

Septimus Heap, Book Four: Quest by Angie Sage

Perception of Beauty

It turned out that Sookie did not need Pond’s Cold Cream to cover up her ugliness. Her ugliness turned into beauty without her having to do a thing. She didn’t grow into beauty with womanhood—her boyishness developing into lush curves. Her body stayed long and thin, what the old grandmothers still call unlucky. Her skin didn’t lighten with age; her face did not grow into her overly large eyes. In fact, she looked much the same as an adult as she had in childhood. There were times when we were grown that I saw her as I did when I was younger, and was shocked into remembering that she was as ugly as she always was. And I would be reminded that what had changed was not so much how we looked, but how we looked out of our own eyes, our perceptions of beauty and of ourselves.

Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller

Book Review: The Stories Behind Tattoos

Shocking Tattoos

I was standing in the driveway, casually discussing the possibility of renting part of a house. The prospect of entering into a situation with roommates wasn’t particularly appealing, simply because I’d had my own space for many years and I prefer to live with that level of control, specifically: I make the decisions, period.

As the conversation progressed, my potential roommate/landlord brought it around to the other, long-standing roommate. The one not present. The one with…and she paused while making the pained expression people have when they fear a particularly bad response to what they are about to say…dreadlocks and tattoos.

I paused a moment, wondering when, exactly, I had physically transformed into the middle-aged, suburban, ignorant-about-everything woman people kept (incorrectly) assuming I was.

“I have tattoos,” was my only response.

She clearly did not expect that.

My Tattoos

I got my first tattoo right before the beginning of my divorce when I knew something was going to have to change or I was going to have to leave. As it turned out, lots of things needed to change and we both needed to go our separate ways (the details are another story for another day).

It’s the lion from the strength card in a tarot deck I owned at the time. I chose that image because I liked both the symbolism and the artwork. It translated into a beautiful tattoo. The symbolism behind the card and the lion (outside of the tarot deck’s interpretation), combined with the circumstances surrounding the act of being tattooed, couldn’t have been more perfect.

My second tattoo occurred during the height of the legal process of that same divorce. It’s a stylized hawk in similar colors and artistic design to the lion. It was designed by a friend with Native American lineage (and a grandmother actively involved with that community), so it includes a balance symbol from her own traditions. At the time, I suspected that particular element was included because the artist thought I needed to find balance in my life; which was true enough, so I went with the design. However, for me, the hawk has always symbolized freedom from entrapment (another long story for another time). Yet, freedom and balance can easily intersect with one another – particularly when necessary changes happen to include the end of a relationship.

The third tattoo was acquired at the very end of my divorce, during the absolute worst period of social and relationship drama. It’s a snake around my ankle. It’s the most visible tattoo I have. It’s a stylized blue tattoo, whereas the other two are red. It’s not scary and the symbolism behind it is not what you think – which is kinda the point. (And, yes, that is also a long story for another time.)

I like my tattoos. They are both symbolic and earned. I wish more people understood both of those concepts.

Chick Ink

This story is not in the book Chic Ink, but a complete version of all details (including those not provided here) could be pulled from this book.

Chic Ink is a collection of experiences, explanations, deep thoughts and memories. Reading it is like sitting down for coffee with a random collection of women and listening to every one of them answer this question: “What’s your tattoo and why did you get it?”

If you’re looking for a good read this holiday vacation, consider picking up Chick ink. The stories behind the tattoos are positively fascinating.

Chick Ink: 40 Stories of Tattoos–And the Women Who Wear Them by Karen L. Hudson

Quotes from the book can be found HERE.

When Legends Become Real

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Amazon.com

This, Soren realized in the deepest part of his gizzard, was why they had to go to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. For when the world one knew began to crumble away bit by bit, when not only your memories but the memories that others might have of you grew dim with time and distance, when, indeed, you began to fade into a nothingness in the minds of the owls that you loved best, well, perhaps that was when legends could become real.

The Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Book One: The Capture, by Kathryn N Lasky

Link

Has anyone succeeded in erasing someone’s memory? by Gagan Bir Singh https://www.quora.com/Has-anyone-succeeded-in-erasing-someones-memory/answer/Gagan-Bir-Singh?share=d15154d6&srid=zRYF

The possibilities for abuse are massive and terrifying.

Coffee and Memories of Youth

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Amazon.com

The stale coffee is boiling up but he catches it before it goes over the side, pours it into a stained cup and blows on the black liquid, lets a panel of the dream slide forward. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

Change Memory and Fog

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Amazon.com

…a silent goodbye, to a place that had changed me forever—and the place that, more than any graveyard, would forever contain the memory, and the mystery, of my grandfather. They were linked inextricably, he and that island, and I wondered, now that both were gone, if I would ever really understand what had happened to me: what I had become; was becoming. I had come to the island to solve my grandfather’s mystery, and in doing so I had discovered my own. Watching Cairnholm disappear felt like watching the only remaining key to that mystery sink beneath the dark waves. And then the island was simply gone, swallowed up by a mountain of fog.

Hollow City: The Second Novel in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Adults Love Santa Too

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Amazon.com

I’ve never been able to explain the phenomenon of adults loving Santa, but I have a theory that seeing me jogs happy memories. I think a lot of us wish we could be children again, becoming breathless with Christmas excitement and believing with all our hearts that wishes can come true. I know I do! I think every grown-up wants to recapture that sense of wonder, even for a moment. And that’s exactly what Santa Claus allows them to do.

Being Santa Claus: What I Learned about the True Meaning of Christmas by Sal Lizard, Jonathan P. Lane

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