The Christmas family room

Have I already told you that I’m not one to overly decorate during the holidays? Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Fourth of July and so on… I’m not a devotee. 

Christmas is mostly when I decorate a bit, and mainly because I love light. Even so, it is not much. One of the reasons being that clutter gives me anxiety. So, aside from the new Christmas tree I have in the living room, just a few more decorations are scattered here and there; but only in the Family room… 

The two little Christmas trees I had while living at the little white cottage came with me to this old house in the roses.  One sits now outside by the front door, embellished with pink poinsettias

And the other one is by the fireplace in our family-room.  I placed it in a wicker basket and covered the sides with some black and white polkadot tissue paper to match with the rest of my decor. No adornments on it, just lights. 

I made the cutest Christmas garland for the mantle using a gold bead string and some burlap ornaments I already had.  Then added lights.

Globe lights sit atop some chunky candles in front of the fire, for some extra sparkle!

And do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night 

amidst the candles!

On top of the coffee table is where the rest of my decorations are.  A Christmas flower bouquet in a gold vase.  Gold, because I love gold accents and this is the same vase I use all year around.  Later on, I'll just replace the flowers by some greenery, or leave it as is.  Why buy a new coffee table centerpiece just for the holidays?  

Frugality, storage, clutter, time... these are some of the reasons why I don't go overboard with my holiday decorations.  I know, you can call me a Grinch if you want, I won't mind! ;)

This cute little elf here has been with me for several years now.  I found him at a second hand store, on a beautiful sunny December day while living at the little white cottage, and I love him so much.  He means a lot of memories to me!

He sleeps on a bed of gold pinecones and pomegranates...

and by him some baubles and trinkets on a Christmas plate

I finally got all my gifts wrapped!

You?

At night, when the house is quiet, this is how I see our family room!  Aglow in the magic of Christmas and the love of the Child born in Bethlehem.

And where is Sherry and Rita and Ms. Luna?  So many of you I’ve gotten to know and love through the years by just coming here every day, that when I don’t happen to see you in a while, I start to miss you! I hope all of you are doing marvelous, wherever you are.  

And to the rest and every one of you my dear readers and bloggy friends, there are so many gifts I want to give to you this Christmas. Peace, love, joy, happiness are all presents I am sending your way.  Thank you for another year with me!

Love to all!

The ape in the roof

Days are brief and gloomy, and the sun seems to have gathered up its bags and gone to live somewhere else.  From morning, to evening, clouds hang low and dark-gray in the vast expanse and, following the same sluggishness in which hours travel through the landscape of my days, I too move slow—desperately trying to rise up from the haze which blinds my eyes and stretch out over my head like a crown of night-dreams. In fact, the lack of light during winter is so influential on my moods and energy that I feel as if another woman had inhabited my body.

To be able to subsist, to restore my soul, I need warmth and sun, and I need my precious hours in the garden alongside birds and the Black-eyed Susans.  But, alas, what is there to see, or do right now?  As it is, I haven’t set foot in the garden in a very long while.  Last night, and the night before that, I heard the wind cry outside trashing things around and slamming off gates, and it was so cold that even the stars turned cerulean blue and went on hiding.  

By five pm is already dark around here, and night falls upon your little world suddenly and brutal.  No, I’m not a pessimist, really, I’m not. I just suffer from what some called a Seasonal Affective Disorder, always had and always will, I guess… but the good thing about all this is that I’m also a dreamer with some magical winter tales to spin, so wont ’ya come in and sit by my fire!  Oh yes, do come in and stay as long as you like!

Now that I don’t have a magical forest anymore, I haven’t seen any witch prying around like I used to back at our little white cottage, but don’t you go on thinking I’m free of incidents of the bizarre nature here, oh no my dears, my witches may have refused to moved north with me, but I have been sightseeing some other type of creature lurking around these days… probably more dangerous than an insipid old witch… you take a look at this 'thing' I saw walking on the neighborhood roofs the other day, and tell me what you're seeing here, because I really really think this is an ape!

Yes, yes I’m not kidding you… I’m talking about Caesar from the Planet of the Apes!  He was here lurking through our neighborhood walking on roofs and backyards the other evening.  I went outside to watch the sun come down, and instead I saw this knuckle-walking think up above the roofs moving very fast... As you can imagine I was invaded with doubts, and shock, and pondered if I was really seeing what I was seeing. An ape?  See the cone head, the strong upper body, and disproportionately long arms for one's body?... ape arms for sure, and the way he was moving!  Truly creepy.

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A post shared by @gypsycielo on Dec 4, 2018 at 4:15pm PST

What do you all think? I have always said: “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” Roald Dahl. 

The Christmas tree

I’ve been dreaming with a new Christmas tress for a long time.  My last one, that one I transformed from a traditional green to a flocked white tree by spray-painting it in white, was left behind somewhere in the south...  

Thus, the windows in our living-room were desperately asking for one.  Of course, it had to be a special kind of a Christmas tree—slender than the usual tree, because it had to fit between both of the chairs crowding that small space by the bay window, where I wanted it to be.  That is one of the reasons why I'd delayed my dream a bit.  I had to find the perfect fit!  And I finally did.   

This tree remains lighted up 24 hours a day, and I just love its glossy glimmering, the warmth, the magic, the small candy colored glowing to it, and that kind of glory that exceeds everything else and always speaks to me of love and forgiveness and hope for our humanity… 

And what is a Christmas tree, but the metaphoric light by which we live our lives?

I love to see my Christmas tree reflected on the mirror across from it... It creates the perfect magic, flooding our living room with dreamlike daintiness and delicate shimmers… 

I'm not one for an over the top decorated Christmas tree.  I rather see something less pretentious or simpler; a less crowded tree only embellished with a few ornaments and just clear lights.  It looks more sophisticated decorated that way to me.  The few vintage baubles I have are in antique pink and the stars are those same ones I spray-painted pink years ago.

I don't decorate a lot for the holidays, but I still love light... lots of little lights! I think this one looks cute here!

I may have to leave it here all year!

Christmas is one of those holidays that is all about light. It’s spiritually illegal to have any darkness in it!

The magic of sunshine and warmth

The world woke up wrapped in fog this morning… fog that made ghosts and apparitions out of trees and shrubberies; fog that covered rooftops and neighborhood houses in layers of pale white sheets.  The garden, too, was a quieted miasma where birds, naked branches and dead leaves where one and the same thing; a place with no sun, where light shone in a polished hue; buffed, and dark… and perhaps... perhaps this was just how my heart felt, and how I perceive life around me.  But oh, how can one feel otherwise after having spent those past few magical days in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico where sunlight and warmth are the umbrella that heal its people and mend sad hearts?  

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise sometimes, but the magic resides in that it is not that we seize them, but rather that they seize us...

It was magic all around under the warmth of the December sun and sea breezes.  Oh sun, yours is the light by which my spirit's born.  Let us dance under your warmth, wearing wild flowers in our hair!

And thus, we are home to our northern ashen winter days again; home to our snow-covered mountains—always drained of color and ices blinding our horizon in pallid sheets, and sometimes I just have to wonder how a sun loving soul such as mine, always yearning for warmth and brilliant light was so blinded as to say ‘yes’ for a return here… and how was I even able to quieted all voices inside me screaming to just follow the sun and stay where we were?  I just have to wonder.  Oh, it must had been love the motive behind all.  For only love could had been able to moved me the way it did. 
  

Our home has been decorated for Christmas as much as my heart can bear to it concerning the usual Christmas décor; but lights—light are never enough around here, never as much as necessary. Thus, lights are everywhere in our home this year. Even the outside, which in years past for whatever reasons it had always been the darkest corner in the neighborhood, it now has been illuminated and embellished with lights, and a new Christmas tree it’s the lighthouse to our home behind the windows…

I’ve been thinking a lot about mom these days and it is hard to believe that tomorrow will be a year since she left us.  My heart keeps asking questions, and pondering; remembering and yearning... yearning upon a dream to come true one day.  Time moves so fast, people come and go out of our lives. We must never miss the opportunity to tell the people we love and care how much they mean to us.