DECORATE YOUR FRONT DOOR FOR THE HOLIDAYS
THE DOORS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
In the days when our children were small, we spent most Christmas celebrations at my parent’s house.
When my mom found a decorative design she liked, she used it every year. Flanking each side of the doorway were two plastic light-up angels with wings, about three feet high, one white and one black. My husband and my big brother, who loved to goad each other into mischeif, soon discovered that the angel heads easily lifted off their “shoulders” and that the wings unscrewed.The white head of the angel was placed on the black angel’s body, and vice-versa. The wings were screwed in upside down. The next year, Mom realised that subversion was afoot. When she set them out in their correct placement, Hubby and Bro changed them back. She changed them, they changed them back. It took several Christmases for Mom to realise who the culprits were, and she shook her finger at them and told them to behave, but it was too late. It had become a Tradition.
THE DOORS OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT
As to our own Christmas door decoration: We live in a townhouse with a small threshold that doesn’t lend itself to alot of decoration. To the right of our door, however, is a huge jasmine bush. True to our antic natures, we decorate our bush in Christmas ornaments. We have a different motif each year. We have had doves, gold harps and trumpets, drums and teddybears. The design that caused the most comment were the shiny lacquer apples that nearly looked as if they had grown from the bush.
The rest of our family decorate to their tastes, and we appreciate them all (no more doorway vandalism by Hubby and Bro, they have retired and await the capers of the next generation). Our son’s mother-in-law, who has a wonderful flair for decoration, creates lovely ivory and burnished gold confections made with ribbons, gauze net , globes, and manzanita limbs; my younger brother’s wife, an avid animal lover, always has lovely creatures incorporated in her design; my mom, nowadays, places topiary trees on each side of her door and decorates them with twinking lights.As each door is different, each one is welcoming, and promise excellent Christmas celebrations beginning just inside the door. The breadth of our holidays have expanded, and we all want family, friend, and stranger alike to enjoy our designs and feel a bit more merry; that is how we keep Christmas.
