JOY TO THE WORLD AND TO YOU TOO MY FRIENDS

My roomie informed me, not too happily, last night that I was the only person he ever saw that decorated my utility room. Technically it’s a laundry room (see washer above)and I am notorious for decorating everything—not the garage for Christmas…though I do for Halloween.

NOW THAT’S ONE DECORATION I DON’T HAVE….love the Scots

So do you do the décor for the holiday?

In English-speaking countries, wreaths are used typically as household ornaments, mainly as Christmas decorations to celebrate the birth of Christ. They are also used in ceremonial events in many cultures around the globe. Wreaths have much history and symbolism associated with them. Protestant reformers such as the Puritans saw wreaths and the holidays they were associated with, such as May Day, as being pagan corrupting influences that destroyed healthy Christians. morality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreath

People around the world, believe that the sound of the Christmas bells bring the lost sheep back to the fold http://www.wnd.com/2010/11/228437/#86qTSHqjmFLFq3rS.99

So just one shelf of my laundry room has a former pagan symbol that has become a celebration for Christ’s birth and bringing loss sheep into the fold. (wreath made of bells) I have no idea what the fuzzy blob with the top hat on the next shelf signifies other than weird choice of ornaments for the holidays.

Another pesky bell and an angel dressed in red.

She’s dressed in red with some green trims: According to a British researcher: “For red and green, our comparatively recent obsession with associating these colours with Christmas masks a profound and long-forgotten other history.” -His research has focused on the art history of medieval rood screens, (14th to the 16th c) and were used to separate the nave from the chancel of churches. – Strikingly, the vast majority are painted in red and green. “The panels were painted by newly settled members of the Flemish immigrant population or by itinerant English and continental European artists who worked together, -, the use of red and green as symbolic colours goes back even further. “As one example, the red–green colour coding appears in the Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh stories from the 13th century, but almost certainly based on an oral tradition that dates back to the pre-Christian Celts many centuries before. Here, the hero comes to a half-red, half-green tree that marks a boundary.” http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/who-colour-coded-christmas#sthash.zK8HjoSV.dpuf

So my angel is marking boundaries—no there is no liquor in the cabinet, maybe just reminding me to stay away from the chip and dip plates.

and then there’s Santa: Since the 20th century, in an idea popularized by the 1934 song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town“, Santa Claus has been believed to make a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior (“naughty” or “nice”) and to deliver presents, including toys, and candy to all of the well-behaved children in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children, on the single night of Christmas Eve. He accomplishes this feat with the aid of the elves who make the toys in the workshop and the flying reindeer who pull his sleigh. He is commonly portrayed as living at the North Pole and saying “ho ho ho” often. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

Need I say any more?

OK the last Hard to Find Gifts from a Catalog I’ve used before:

Solutions: www.soluntions.com