Deck the Halls with Cats and Pumpkins

Let the Holiday decorating frenzy begin! It’s October and this marks the beginning of my favorite season. I’m referring to the extended holiday adornment period that starts with the pumpkins, witches, and black cats of Halloween and ends in an extravaganza of snowflakes, Jolly Santa’s and jingle bells.

Retailers everywhere begin assembling their wares even sooner than October, (sometimes as early as August)… and for me that’s just fine. I used to hate this premature practice of solicitation on their parts, but hating is so cumbersome and not nearly as fun as decorating. So I decided instead to use the retail pre-displays as my planning phase of the project, for developing themes and ideas for the upcoming events.

As the first week of October arrives, I’m ready with my assortment of jackolanterns, ghosts and goblins. Ever since we acquired our cat Rockie 4 years ago, the black cat theme runs predominant at Halloween in our home as a kind of tribute to our furry friend. If left to choose between that or a rubber rat, we tend to gravitate toward the black cat hands down. Let us not forget the recent addition of fiber optics to our holiday decorum either. What home is complete without a glowing skull or an animated angel who’s wings light up and change colors every few seconds?

I will leave the Halloween goodies out a day or two into November, and then it’s time to redo everything in scarecrows, strewn hay, more pumpkins, and the handmade vegetables my mother sewed years ago.

Isn’t this fun?