Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

I’ve loved that so many bloggers have been sharing their Christmas and holiday trees and decorations this week, so I thought I would join in.

Let’s start outside and work our way in.

First up is our inflatable sloth in a Christmas sweater.  Nick loves sloths, so we’ve added some sloths to our Christmas decorations.  This one is named Stuart.  Apparently, not everyone immediately recognizes Stuart as a sloth.  When I posted his picture on Facebook, my aunt messaged me asking if we really had a drunk raccoon inflatable.  No drunk raccoons here.

I know inflatables can be somewhat polarizing; people seem to love them or hate them, with no middle ground.  I love them.  I think they’re fun and cheery. 

Next up is the Christmas flag.

Then, the wreaths, matching wreaths on the front door and carport door.

Inside the house, we have the Christmas tree with lots of ornaments. 

The house we were renting when we bought the tree had a huge living room, so it’s a little big for our much smaller living room here.  I really don’t care.  It’s the only Christmas tree I’ve ever had, and I love it.

Nick loves sloths, so we added a sloth ornament this year.

We bought this ornament at an antique store when we were first looking for a house.

I’m a huge Friends fan, so we have some Friends ornaments. 

I put off buying a dumpster fire ornament until this year, but after a few dumpster fire years, I gave in and bought one.  It’s not year-specific, so it will work for any dumpster fire year.

Nick’s mom, Susan, gave me this book lover’s ornament last year.  I love it.

This one is self-explanatory.

Since we met on E-harmony, I was happy when I found this.

Nick gave me this butterfly ornament our first Christmas together.  It was also my first Christmas ornament.  It’s one of my favorites.

I love this cute little gingerbread house ornament.

Our friend Martha gave us this ornament the first Christmas after we were married. 

Our friend Alex gave us this one.  I call it the Thanksgiving ornament, so you know I like it.

The tree skirt has sloths.

Before we move on from the tree, 2023 isn’t the year Caroline stops climbing the Christmas tree.  

It’s a good thing she’s cute!

Moving on from the tree, we have a Winter Solstice candle this year.

And a Yule log candle holder.

One more winter candle holder.

I think this pink gingerbread house is adorable.  (The shelf isn’t dusty; I promise it’s glitter!)

I found this little winter house on Etsy and thought it was so cute.

Finally, we have the Christmas decoration my old coworker EJ gave me for Secret Santa several years ago.  The skiers move down the slope.  It was a great Secret Santa present.

I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a joy-filled time in whatever your chosen celebrations are.  

Masks

I know this post is really, really late in the grand scheme of wearing masks, but it seems like wearing masks will be going on for quite a while, so maybe better late than never.  And I’ve seen a few other people post about their masks, so I decided to as well.

Obviously, we’re wearing masks.  North Carolina has a mask mandate in place, though it’s not rigorously enforced everywhere.  We’ve been making a point of supporting businesses that do enforce it, and not supporting the ones that don’t.  It’s something we both feel very strongly about.  

That being said, it took some getting used to remembering to always bring a mask, and some trial and error to figure out the best way to organize them.  It seems like it’s always a little hectic trying to leave the house, and we’ve learned to keep things we need to take with us near the door.  We hang our keys near the door, so we decided hanging masks near the door would work.

We put up this hook for them.  

It’s very sturdy, so whenever things are back to normal we plan to use the hook for things like bags of library books that need to be returned and other things that need to be taken somewhere else.

We have a lot of masks.  It took some trial and error to find the ones that are most comfortable.  And Nick hasn’t been able to work from home, so that’s a mask every day, two now that the CDC has started recommending double masking, plus additional masks for any time I have to go into the office, or any time we have to take pets to the vet or go anywhere else.  Since they can’t go in the dryer, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of extras for the times when we get behind on laundry.  So we have a lot of masks.

We’ve also been following the guidance to wash them after every use.  I feel like the guidance to treat them like underwear; don’t touch them/take them off in public, wash them after every use, etc. is pretty simple to understand and follow.  

We have this bag hanging near the door to collect the dirty masks.  It’s just a reusable bag that I used to take to Aldi. 

It’s washable, and I periodically wash it along with the masks.  I know we could just put the used masks in the laundry hamper with everything else, but there’s a lot of potential for the mask to be taken off and left somewhere else in the house on the way to the hamper.  Since there have been cases of animals getting COVID, we don’t want to risk Duke or the cats getting sick from a contaminated mask, so the bag near the door works well for us.  We come in, put the mask in the bag, and immediately wash our hands.  

All of the masks that we’ve bought say to hand wash or wash on the gentle cycle, so they all go in the washer on the hand wash cycle.  Early on, I put them in with other things that were washed on the hand wash cycle, but the masks tend to get caught up in sleeves and pant legs.  A few accidentally went through the dryer that way, and I felt like I had to throw them away after that.  I wasn’t sure if they’d still be  effective, so I threw them away.  After that, I started counting the masks and making sure I had hung up the right number of masks before I put anything in the dryer.  That kept me from ruining any more masks, but it was a pain, so now I just wash the masks by themselves. 

It was a challenge figuring out how to dry so many masks at once.  We can’t hang them anywhere within reach of the cats because Caroline and Mortimer will chew the straps.  And a mask with no straps is pretty much useless.  The best method I’ve come up with is using a straight plastic clip hanger like this, so I can put several masks on one hanger.  Then I put the hanger on one of the hooks we have over our bedroom and closet doors.  

The cats can’t reach them, and they get plenty of air to dry.  

I decided early on to get masks in cute/cheerful prints/patterns.  There definitely hasn’t been much joy and happiness during the pandemic, so I decided to put a little bit of happiness wherever I could, and cute masks make me a little bit happier than plain ones. 

 

I’m a Friends fanatic, so of course I have a Friends mask.

Nick is a huge Star Trek fan, so he has a Star Trek mask.

If you’ve visited much, you know I love to cook, so I  have a mask with a cooking print.  

Nick loves sloths, so he has a sloth mask.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that most of my masks have butterflies.

Unfortunately, Nick’s job doesn’t share my view that cute masks bring a little bit of happiness, and they have a policy of solid color masks only.  They adopted that policy fairly early on, so Nick only has a few masks with prints.  We have a lot of solid colored masks, since Nick has to wear masks a lot more often than I do.  I’ve bought masks in pretty much every possible shade of blue since that’s Nick’s favorite color.  I refuse to give up on trying to squeeze a little bit of beauty and happiness into wearing masks.

My job, while being very strict about enforcing the mask mandate, has said we can wear any kind of mask we want as long as it’s not offensive.  So I still get to wear my happy masks whenever I go into the office.  Most of my coworkers have opted for solid colored masks anyway, but I don’t think it surprises anyone when the person with the pink office shows up in a mask with butterflies or rainbow hearts.  

So what about you?  Did you have a hard time getting used to remembering to bring a mask?  Do you prefer patterned or solid color masks?