I’ll admit, I have pumpkin envy. 
I drive by neighbors’ homes and the local area and I see pumpkins everywhere. They’re so pretty and bright and colorful, and all the Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations are just beautiful. So why don’t I have any? Why aren’t there jack-o-lanterns on my steps? Scarecrows and turkeys on my lawn?
*sigh*
I honestly don’t know. I stopped buying pumpkins several years ago, and I stopped gathering fodder etc for the yard years before that. We live a ways off the road and you can’t really see what’s on our porch or steps unless it’s really large. Plus, to be honest, as much as I love pumpkins and all the beautiful fall decor, I don’t decorate at all for Halloween or Thanksgiving. Nope. I’m a Christmas girl and once November 1 hits the Christmas music comes on, the movies come out and the decorating begins! 
Yeah, to me Christmas trumps Halloween/Thanksgiving every time. I love fall colors etc, but I just enjoy Christmas more. Guess that makes me a Reindeer. Or an elf.
So where do you fall on the scale? Are you a pumpkin/Thanksgiving person or are you like me and you can’t wait to pull out the Christmas decorations??
35 comments:
Hi Kay,
I am a reindeer. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love Christmas music and all the decorations. I am also looking forward to reading your new book.
I'm a scrooge... Since I have very little family left and those that I do have don't live nearby I don't much enjoy any season in particular and I don't decorate for any of them.
And since I already have and have read Christmas in Montana don't enter me for the drawing.
Considering we still have our Christmas lights up from last year, I'd say I'm a reindeer.
My 9-year old son did all the Halloween decorations, including setting up a graveyard with RIP written on little stones. Sadly the pumpkins he carved himself rotted the day before Halloween and we didn't have time to replace them.
Looking forward to CHRISTMAS IN MONTANA, I've spent part of my honeymoon in Big Sky country.
Hi Kay, I'm a Halloween "Grinch" because I have a tendency to snarf the candy before the kids arrive. This year I just left the porch light off.
I like the shiny sparkling things of Christmas. Even the people seem to sparkle a little more as the date approaches.
Reindeer. After years of marketing effort, Halloween has still failed to take off as a holiday of any significance in Australia. Maybe it's too close to Melbourne Cup Day? I am actually champing at the bit to set up my Christmas tree this year. I bought a new artificial one last year and my decorations had been in storage for so long I had forgotten how pretty they were. I do like a bit of sparkle and tinsel...
I love Christmas too! Whenever I go travelling, my souvenir of choice is to buy a Christmas tree decoration. Every year, setting up my Christmas tree is so much fun! It's like a little mental journey back through all the places I've been!
I'm a pumpkin I guess as we do some decorating for Halloween but none for Christmas. We used to really go all out and put up a graveyard and numerous other decorations. This year we only put up our string of pumpkin lights, just one of our light up skulls and one light up plastic pumpkin. The reason is we are getting older and there really aren't a lot of kids in our neighborhood anymore. We only had 44 kids come on Halloween and most of them were 10 or older.
We haven't decorated much for Christmas since my parents passed away. We go to my sister's place for Boxing Day. I do however own thirty or more nativity scenes which I'd love to be able to display but we have Dash, the incredible pest who can clear off the table in one or two quick leaps. He is not like our first cat who could jump onto a shelf full of ornaments and not damage a single one of them.
I have your book on order I hope so don't include me in the draw. It's taken Harlequin a long time to get it out.
When we moved overseas we had to condense our entire household, everything we couldn't live without for two years, into 14 packing boxes (weighing less than seventy five pounds) which we could take as extra baggage on the plane. Seven of the boxes contained all our unbreakable Christmas decorations - including a full Santa suit with wig and beard and a trainset with tracks that went around our Chritmas tree. We could give up almost everything, but not Christmas.
I'm a pumpkin, I guess, but I really think I'm more of a ghoul. We make a haunted house display every year, complete with creepy music over the speakers. The thing I love about it is that we do the decorating around 4 on Halloween and take it all down by 10 that night.
(I don't carve pumpkins, though. The flame and the blowing fall leaves terrifies me.)
At Christmas, we decorate, but I have to admit the lingering nature of Christmas decorations bothers me...our tree has been known to linger until February. ;-)
Kaelee--my favorite thing has always been the manger. My mom and dad had one with some homemade pieces and some store bought. My uncle, who was a set designer and window dresser, made one for me when I got married. He made the stable himself and it's gorgeous. He bought the pieces and painted them by hand.
In my 2nd 2012 book about Wes Fallon, the heroine's mom has a Christmas shop. She sells handmade mangers that she buys from an artist in Pennsylvania. That's an homage to my uncle. (My kids called him The Artist when they were young.) He passed away a few years ago, but his art is still alive in our home.
Cool post, Kay! I love reading the stories.
Reindeer here. Another sad thing about growing old much of the holiday glitter and fuss stays in the closet. I am a hugh fan on Christmas books tho, and the kids always give me a couple.
Oh, I love all the stories! I'm glad I'm not the only reindeer. :)
Real pine trees lit with hot lights make me nervous so we've always used an artificial tree. Like someone said, I try to buy an ornament from any location I visit, and since I've collected glass ornaments for so long we have quite a few containers. That makes for a weighty tree. LOL
Ellen, how wonderful that your uncle's art made such an impact. You need to post a picture of it sometime. I'd love to see his work.
Ladies, thank you so much for posting your stories. I read every word and I could feel the fondness and love as the memories unfolded.
Kay
I'm definitely a reindeer but we decorate a little for Halloween and fall in general. As soon as Halloween is over we take away the scary deco and leave a few pumpkins and fall deco around until the day after Thanksgiving. I've had to make a promise to Mr. Chelle to wait until after Thanksgiving. The next morning the Christmas totes come out of storage and it's game on like Donkey Kong!!
I'm a pumpkin...though I do have antlers that come out soon after Thanksgiving. In all honesty, I love the harvest motiff and my Halloween decorations are over the top. Just packed all of it up and I have six storage boxes full of ghost, goblins and witches who will sleep until next year. My harvest decs stay up till Black Friday and then the Christmas comes out. I love decorating :)
But I am excited about putting up my Disney tree in the kitchen this year - silver tree decorated in red and black ornamants and tinsel topped with my Mickey Mouse ears. It's so darn cute!
I'm a shamrock. My favorite holiday is St. Patrick's Day. What can I say? Try as they might, it's the one holiday the commercializers have only moderate success with. Yay.
I also love Christmas, in spite of the commercializers, so I guess I'm a reindeer with a shamrock. Some years I go all out decorating and other years I barely get a tree up. But the spitit is there. Sometimes the less I do, the more I feel like it's Christmas. Just that sense of peace.
Ellen--do you still have your holi-deer in the yard? Love the story about your uncle.
Uh..that would be spirit, not spitit. Oy.
Hi Jeannie,
I do still have my nodding reindeer. Only 1 side of the bigger one lights up and neither of them nod anymore, but they are very peaceful and lovely(ish). ;-)
Someday we should spend St. Patrick's Day in my hometown, Scranton. They have quite the celebration. I like that holiday, too! The goofy t-shirt slogans always crack me up.
I used to decorate for all the holidays, especially when my DD was small. I usually still carve a pumpkin for Halloween and put out a tombstone and break out the fog machine (which really creeps some kids out as the fog curl around the lighted tombstone) even though we have few trick-or-treeters.
This year, my very dear friend passed away just before Halloween, and aside from all the visitation and funeral things that took up time (she was buried on Halloween day), I just couldn't muster up any enthusiasm.
Sadly, my friend's mother's birthday is also on Halloween day, so she had to bury her daughter on her birthday. It just wasn't a good time of year this year.
I do love both Thanksgiving and Christmas, too, and will decorate for Christmas. However, aside from putting a plastic canvas turkey and pilgrim children that my father-in-law needlepointed on our table, I don't do much decorating for Thanksgiving. Just cooking.
I am a Reindeer for sure. I am not that into Halloween, but I go all out for Christmas.
I just ordered Christmas in Montana this week... But hey I don't mind two copies...
I don't decorate my house much except at Christmas and I put the lighted reindeer and things in my yard. I think they look really cool. Your new book sound fab and I can't wait to read it.
I am a reindeer. I tend to wait and decorate for Christmas.
JV, I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope you can find some enthusiasm and celebrate the holidays for you friend/with your friend in mind.
Ellen, your reindeer used to move? I've always wanted to go all out on our yard and last year we put out a lot of lights. They lasted a couple days. Several days of rain came through and the lights on one tree shorted out, caught fire (a small one the rain put out), and knocked out all the others. LOL OOPS! I don't think we're doing light outside this year. ;)
LOL on Jeannie being a Shamrock. I'm a wee bit Irish (Aren't we all? ;) ) so I can identify. No big celebrations here, though.
Kay
Reindeer - that's me!
I decorate indoors only. Our house sits off the road and you can hardly see anything until you come up close to it.
I love decorating indoors, that's were I get the benifits also. Love Christmas! So I guess I am definetly a REINDEER.
I am a pumpkin and a reindeer....an orange reindeer....I decorate for all holidays and especially those that fall in the Fall/Winter months. I'm a retired teacher and well, what can I say...teachers decorate every chance they get.
JFWisherd(at)aol(dot)com
Since my grandchildren are all older boys I don't decorate much anymore...maybe a wreath or a few ornaments in the house but I spend the Holidays at their house so I don't see a need to put out a lot of decorations if no one is home to see them.So guess I'm neither a pumpkin nor a reindeer...maybe a little elf?
JWIsley(at)aol(dot)com
Reindeer! Love Christmas! And love reading Christmas stories...have read several last 2 wks. and would love to read yours, as well!
I'm more of a Christmas person than a pumpkin caving type of all. That's not to say I don't appreciate seeing the pumpkins all decked out. I think it's in due in part because the Holiday season seems so long whereas Halloween is shorter. I can't wait when places get all decked out :)
I'm a reindeer. As Sarah said, Halloween hasn't taken here in Australia. For one thing, the kids are going trick or treating on a mild spring evening in full daylight. Just isn't the same. Mind you, as a transplanted Canadian, having Christmas in mid-summer seems twisted, too. We always have a tree and a few decorations but I draw the line at fake snow on the windows when it's hot and sunny outside. :)
Kay, I meant to add, that's a gorgeous cover!
Without a doubt, I am a reindeer kinda gal. IO LOVE Christmas! Food, Family, friends, and fun. I am a sucker for anything with a Christmas theme. Hmm, do ya think it may be 'cause I was born on the 18th and the 'rents brought me home on Christmas day?
=)
Would love the chance to read Christmas in Montana, thanks for the chance to win!
I'm a reindeer. I like all the Christmas baking. I had to quit collecting ornaments as I ran out of storage room.
I'm a Christmas fanatic, an absolute lover of all things snow, tree, stars, cookies & milk ....
A Reindeer :D for sure.
I love Christmas SO much that throughout the whole year I'm interested in finding things for the holidays. Recipes, fabrics I can turn into handmade ornaments or quilts. Beads or ribbbons. Anything and everything that'll keep me busy making our own homemade xmas the best.
Romance novels that promise a bit of Christmas cheer are the greatest gems. I collect them and store them in a basket in the attic. When it's november/december I pull it out & read, re-read & decorate the livingroom with them. Stacks underneath the tree & some on a shelf between the candycanes & Christmas wreaths :)
A reindeer for sure. I just love Christmas. Everything about it. I can even handle the crowds shopping, so long as the Carols keep on playing.
Fall is my favorite season and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so obviously I'm a pumpkin person. We took the Halloween decorations down yesterday, sigh, but left up the fall themed ones for Thanksgiving. We won't get the Christmas ones out until after Thanksgiving.
Sorry I didn't make it back here yesterday! Things got surprisingly busy.
The WINNER of an autographed copy of CHRISTMAS IN MONTANA is Chelle!!! Chelle, please contact me privately with your shipping info.
Thank you, ladies! I LOVED reading your stories. :)
Kay
I am pumpkin and i love chrismas related everything.
jewellery gifts
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