Walking through stores this time of year I look at cute fall hand towels, I see shower curtains with autumn leaves on them, I admire elaborate centerpieces with festive gourds, I ponder yard decorations reflecting the type of weather we don’t actually get in south Texas, then I go home and I browse Pinterest to see so many cute ways people decorate for holidays and all I can think is “my cats would destroy that in no time flat.” I don’t decorate seasonally! My house never has flowers and eggs in the spring; no red, white, and blue in the summer; very minimal pumpkin action in the fall; and nothing beyond a decorated tree for the Christmas season. I remember my mom always having decorations that rotated out for each upcoming holiday, but I cannot seem to get motivated to do the same. We do things to celebrate each holiday, but it almost never involves decoration.
In the spring we go to community Easter egg hunts, and there is a small basket of goodies for him on Easter morning. My son goes to bed too early for fireworks, so 4th of July is red, white, and blue glowstick bath night. Halloween is a little more exciting since we do a family theme costume and hang out in a pop-up tent in the front yard to hand out goodies (this year the Avengers was the costume, but the tent had no decoration besides pumpkins). Christmas gets nothing more than a tree that goes up less than a week before the holiday, but we are usually out of town visiting family so under the tree remains empty. The holidays are celebrated in our home, but you wouldn’t usually know it if you weren’t inside at the right time.
I feel like my son might be missing out a little because of my lack of seasonal cheer so I’ve started collecting a few things to get in the festive spirit. One of the things I remember most from my childhood was my mom putting window clings on the mirror in the bathroom my siblings and I shared. I loved coming home from school and finding she had rotated out for the next holiday. Something about the hearts in February, or the firework images in the summer made me smile. I know she had other seasonal decorations around the house, but I couldn’t tell you what any of them looked like. Somehow the window cling images remain in my memory with fondness. I’ve been working on a collection of my own to put in my little guy’s bathroom, I can’t wait to see his reaction when he discovers them tonight.