Seasonal Decorations

Okay, I think it needs to be said.  Out loud.

As I was driving to the church the other day, I noticed a couple of sawhorses set up in someone's driveway with a huge pile of cornstalks laying out to dry.  I can only presume the cornstalks were in preparation for fall decorations, as this particular house has a beautifully kept front yard and flower bed.  As I drove by, it ocurred to me that the only people who have the time, money, and inclination for seasonal decorating en mass, are those who - frankly - have actually very little to do with genuine seasonal activity (i.e. this home doesn't have  - ahem - a farm field, vegetable garden or fruit tree in sight....).

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love seasonal decorations.  I love browsing decorating magazines as much as the next woman, and I can get dreamy about how my house might look if I actually had the time and money that some people obviously have.

However, it has been several years now since I have had the luxury - and yes, it is a luxury - of spending money on objects that are simply meant to represent the beauty, grandeur, or nostalgia of the seasonal changes.  Instead, my house is full of the not-so-beautiful-but-very-practical signs of the seasons as they roll by.  For example - I don't possess a pile of nicely drying cornstalks in my yard this fall.  I DO, however, have a garden that is in various stages of drying as the weather cools.  My cornstalks are drying up where they were planted - standing in the garden in a rather wilted state.  My kitchen is full of boxes of canned foods that I have busy with for over a month now.  Canning supplies are, simply put, everywhere.  Between Luke and myself, they get sprinkled from the kitchen to the front door on a sometimes daily basis. In other words.....fall decorating in real form.  Not pretty, but definitely harvest-themed!

The same could be said for any of the other seasons, as well.  ,It's not that I don't try, at least somewhat, but.............My decorating these days for Thanksgiving and Christmas consists of slapping a wreath on the front door, (maybe) finding a table center-piece, and for all of two weeks in December, hoisting a tree in our dining room.  Otherwise, my seasonal decorations consist of the smells of seasonal foods cooking, simmering, or baking in the kitchen, from spiced cider in freezing December to ham and scalloped potatoes on Resurrection Sunday.  In the winter, I must add, "decorations" also includes snowpants, boots, coats, hats, scarves and mittens strewn from the front to the back door, usually clumped around the furnace vents as they dry.  Spring decorating at my house is now compiled of gardening magazines and rubber boots (my new best friend in the early spring weeks); seed catalogs and gardening gloves, and sometimes a capenter's tape as I scramble to measure yard and garden spaces while dreaming of new floral scapes and vegetable beds. 

Someday, perhaps, I'll have a beautifully decorated home again.  But for now, I decorate as an itsy-bitsy scale farmer; in real-time, real-world, real-seasonal style.  Not something fit for a home decorating magazine features, but definitely fit for a family farm feature.  No more feeling sad or bad or sorry for myself that my house doesn't look Martha Stewart-ish.  Instead, I think I'll head out to the garden and see how orange our giant pumpkin looks.