Holiday Decorations

Hello #christmashive friends! I hope I'm allowed to share my post in here since I really celebrate the solstice, but I grew up in a family that celebrated Christmas (they still do) and there are a few Santas in my decorations. ;)

Yesterday, I took down my fall/harvest decorations and put up my Yule decorations:

A lot of these were made by my grandmother: the trees, the red candles, and the snow guy and gal up at the top right are all made by her. :) Grandma creations are special.

I had a bit of an adventure trying to add lights to this display. I had one string of lights that I plugged it in and it was totally dead. So I dug out the other string of lights and tested it, saw lights, and began hanging it up. Well...

Yeah, about a third of that string of lights wasn't working, either:

...which probably means that there is just a burnt out bulb on there somewhere. So I'm going to try and pop some bulbs off the dead string and use them to replace the burnt out bulb on the mostly good string and see if that works? I don't have any more of the spares that come with the lights except for the flashing ones, which hurt my head, so if I can't get any of the ones off the dead string to work then I'm stuck. I don't think they even make strings like this anymore as it's years old and not LED, which most strings at the store are now. I suppose I could ask the buy nothing group if anyone has any spare bulbs, but I don't think my odds would be very good of finding any. 😅 So I might need to buy new lights in the end, but we'll see.

Anyway, my reindeer came out too, though she still needs fresh sprigs for her antlers and tail (the ones in there now are from last year - and the one antler that is shorter is because a doggo came along and chomped on it last year, lol):

My main Santa is older than I am, and when I was a child I used to claim him and take him to bed with me at night to hug. When I was in my 20s my mom officially gave him to me, since he had always been my favorite:

I do actually have an artificial tree and all the decorations that go with that, but with moving madness still all over my apartment, I doubt I'll be setting it up this year. I'm not sure where I'd put it right now! But at least my stoop/window is decorated. :)

I hope y'all have a good holiday season, whatever you do or don't celebrate! :)