In these days flying by on the way to Christmas, I find myself fighting an inner war. Do I decorate with simple primitive handmade items like the early settlers or should I go with the kitsch glitter and tinsel laden decorations I loved as a kid?
I LOVE handmade decorations. I have a fake feather tree in my living room covered will all handmade decorations except the popcorn string that is fake because I can’t stand the thought of leaving real food out for weeks… drawing bugs and critters. I am working on my real feather tree, but that is a slow process, so for now we have to pretend. I thought I had settled on this motif… until I went antiquing.
There I saw it. The leg lamp of my house in the form of a Hazel Atlas eggnog set. It’s beautiful in all its 1940-1950 charm. It’s mint condition and just screams for me to fill it full of eggnog…and secretly spike it,
If there were a support group for people who are stuck in 40’s and 50’s but wasn’t actually born then, I would be the leader. I can’t help it. My ipod is full of the Andrews Sisters and Bing. I love the celluloidness and commercialism of that period. I love the seemingly newfound attraction to artificial things. I know… because I hate the artificial things of today. But this was a period of innocence that I can somehow relate to even though I didn’t live through the first one. There are a lot of similarities… war years and all.
But part of me goes back even further. I long for the simplicity of being happy with a Christmas goose and handmade ornaments and fireplaces and sleigh rides. I know we tend to romanticize the past. That special Christmas goose was probably the only meat we would have had for days… and it was probably about half the size of our growth-hormone injected birds today. Deep down, I know things were probably just as hard in their own ways back then, but what kind of American would I be if I didn’t feel my problems were far worse than anyone else’s?