Bad Manners and Brimstone

I love Thanksgiving and I give it my full attention. (You could always bring it to the UK, you know, but not with pilgrims unless you want.)

: )

Here is my schedule: Around the end of September or beginning of October I lay out my Autumn decorations. For some reason, I gravitate toward pumpkins, both real and faux (metal, glass, burlap, etc.). I have them in colors I love but not usually orange. I also buy from Trader Joe's those pumpkins on a stick, which are not pumpkins but decorative eggplants, and dried seeds and grasses and wheat, and putka pods.

I loathe Halloween but I do have a mini set up of two small houses alongside a graveyard, a scene on a kind of pedestal that I painted and decorated along with black cheesecloth, and a brass candlestick I spray painted black, plus several wine bottles (labels soaked off) that I spray painted either matte or shiny black that I stuck half-burned black candles in (and dripped a little red candle wax on the candles and bottles to make them appear blood-spotted).

Come November 1, I remove the Halloween stuff, and add to the pumpkins and dried decor. This year, because my mother died on Memorial Day weekend, I got from her house a small, perhaps 6 inches high, lightweight cardboard stove (from around 1910) with a door that opens to show a turkey in the oven. It's a silly thing, probably from a Hallmark store, but I have liked it for years. This year it will grace my home.

Finally, the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, and having taken down and put away all autumn and Thanksgiving decorations, I will get out all the Christmas stuff and for two days put it up.

It sounds like I have a lot and overdo the house, but I really don't. I am very fussy about having only quality items and just enough so it is, as Goldilocks put it, "not too [much], not too [little], but just right."While I love looking at decorations and blogs and websites and even occasionally on Pinterest and in stores and at thrift stores and so on, I really buy very little because I don't just have to love it, I have to be willing to store it for 10.5 months of the year. The last point keeps me focused and I pass up far, far more than I consider buying.

Pumpkins on a stick: https://www.gardenhoard.com/ornamental-eggplant-pumpkin-on-a-stick-seeds.html
Dried Decor: https://www.drieddecor.com/
Putka pods: https://www.etsy.com/search?q=putka%20pods