Christmas decor at our house is generally limited to 1) our tabletop Christmas tree and 2) a solitary string of battery-powered lights over the front porch and carport.
A week before Christmas last year, half the lights in our pre-lit tree bit the dust.
A couple of days later, so did the outdoor lights.
Before we put the tree away last season, we detangled, cut off, and trashed ALL the lights that came knotted through the tree originally.
This year we bought a cheapie string. I think it looks as good as, if not better, vs. what came with the tree. (Photo at left.) My only complaint, if you can call it that, is there’s no “tail” on the power cord. The lights start no more than a foot from the plug. Minor annoyance.
We also ordered more battery-powered outdoor lights, and they seem to be a good option. Unfortunately (oops!) the outdoor strand also shorter than I calculated. A second set arrived last night and G hung them today.
All holiday stuff was from WalMart this year, since they were less expensive than Amazon and delivery was faster. (I broke down a few months ago and bought WalMart+. I cannot haul my butt through stores any longer, and Wally World is one of the few local spots that will deliver to my door.)
Surprisingly, WalMart quality is superior to Amazon, too.
I’m still not a huge WalMart fan. Their treatment of employees is awful. However, so is Amazon and so is virtually every other business I can think of. We gotta eat, so we go with the one that delivers.
On the liquid side of consumption, G needs his coffee in the morning, like so much of the world.
Yuban Dark Roast coffee has been mandatory on the grocery list for several years.
Except for some reason, Yuban Dark Roast has joined the endangered species list. Wally World has been hit and miss for a while, and is now mostly “miss”. Same for Amazon, and I gave up trying at local grocery stores long ago. I’ve bought Peet a couple of times and G said it was pretty good. However, Peet ain’t cheap. (Not that any coffee is cheap.)
For the premium labels, Starbucks is surprisingly among the lower-cost options. (Not per cup from their coffee shops, but bags of ground, make-it-at-home stuff.) G decreed it’s his new favorite. Fine with me, because I can buy Starbucks almost everywhere. Another monopolistic win because our choices are narrowing by the minute.
Another example of the horrible fallout of what I euphemistically call the “political mess” (because there aren’t enough swear words to encompass it all).
A friend just lost her mother, who was hospitalized because she grew so ill she couldn’t care for herself. She wouldn’t drink water or eat food at the hospital, because “the doctors are trying to kill me”.
This wasn’t dementia. It was 1000% conspiracy theory, a conspiracy theory that literally killed her.
Look, I don’t have any love for doctors, and hope I never have to count on them for lifesaving care. Not eating or drinking at a hospital though… there are no words. It’s unconscionable that anyone in public office would intentionally create such overwhelming and all-encompassing misery, yet here we are.
Oh, and while I didn’t have words for the idiots who cheerfully vomit out conspiracy theories like this, my friend called them “fucking knuckle-dragging cretins”. She does have a way with words.
The photo at the top of the page is mine. I’ve been playing with still life work since my stamina is in the toilet these days and the local landscape is a uniform color somewhere between gray, brown, and beige.
The metal spoon in the photo came from a box of vintage kitchenware we bought from a friend. (The pan is new.) I thought the blue works well as selective color.
There will be more photos later. Not now, though. I’m beat.
I’m glad you got your Christmas decor up and almost ready. I am working myself up to dragging boxes upstairs to put out for a few days and then take down and drag back downstairs. I’m not sure it is worth the effort plus with a new young kitten, I wonder what she will do with all the decor.
Your kitty will love the decorations, though she may be a menace to them, lol. And the only reason I even bother with decorations is G does a lot of the work. We decorate the tree together, and G hangs the outside lights. But we keep it to a minimum for a reason!