Family | BulgingButtons

November 1, 2014
by BulgingButtons 8 Comments

Welcome to the Crazy that we Call November

The trick-or-treaters are all gone, and only a few candy wrappers were blowing around the empty street this morning. I’m debating whether to put away the Halloween decorations today or wait until Monday. It seems like they should stay up through the weekend. I even hit the half price section of my major discount retailer this morning for a few strands of orange lights and a three foot tall monster yard decoration. Oh, and a couple of bags of half price candy. We ran out last night and I’m a candy addict, I admit it.

So now that another holiday is officially in the books, the craziness that is November begins. We start the month with the vestiges of Halloween, and the candy and mess (think rotting pumpkins) it leaves behind. As soon as we get that all put away, we turn our attention to Thanksgiving. Who will be coming over, what dishes should we serve? And if you live at my house, how shall we prepare the turkey? Fried, smoked, or roasted? Decisions, decisions. Then, the day after that’s all done, as we’re enjoying leftovers, we turn our attention to Christmas. Up goes the tree, and out go the crazy black Friday shoppers. No offense, but I enjoy sleep way too much to get up in the middle of the night to fight crowds and spend money. No, thank you.

Mix into all of that a little thing called NaNoWriMo, where you challenge yourself to write a whole novel in November, and another little thing called NaBloPoMo, where you challenge yourself to blog everyday, and you have a recipe for madness. The really weird part about it all? I did it last year (oh, and threw in a very early Chanukah to boot) and honestly, I LOVED it! I blogged everyday. I wrote a manuscript of over 50,000 words. I cleaned up from Halloween, celebrated Thanksgiving, celebrated Chanukah, and prepared for Christmas. I also taught full-time and parented a teen and maintained a relationship with my fiance. I rocked it!

So here we are back at November 1. I’m in a new home, but everything else is the same. Do I think I can do it again? Why not! I won’t know unless I try, so by golly I’m going to try. Hang on to your hat, because November is here!

October 30, 2014
by BulgingButtons 1 Comment

Halloweens, Long Ago and Far Away

I really love Halloween. Not the scary stuff, but the fun stuff. The jack-o-lanterns and the dressing up and the trick-or-treating are all wonderful. I’ve always loved Halloween. As a kid with a big imagination and a sweet tooth, why wouldn’t I? I got to dress up and fill a bag full of candy from all over the neighborhood. What could be better?

I have no idea when I first started to dress up for Halloween. We don’t have pictures of Halloween past that I’m aware of. There are dozens of close up shots of flowers, but no little kids in costumes. Go figure. Still, I know I trick or treated as a kid.

The first costume I recall included one of those awful plastic masks that were hard to see out of and hard to breathe through. It was a woman’s face with blonde hair. I think it was Sleeping Beauty or Goldilocks, but I can’t be sure. Either seems like an odd choice for me, but I imagine it’s what was available at the store at the time.

My mother isn’t exactly what you’d call creative. My brother and I took care of our own costumes for the most part. I seem to recall that he was a hobo more than once. He did create a rather impressive robot out of odds and ends one year that left a lasting impression on me.

My costumes weren’t always the best, and honestly I don’t think the neighbors had any clue what I was dressed as half the time. That’s okay, since most of us had to wear our winter coats over our costumes anyway. I never had a great costume as a kid. Charlie Chaplin with his colored scotch tape mustache was kind of a bust. I didn’t give up though, not until the final year, in high school, when I pinned some ears on a grey sweatshirt and used eye pencil to draw on whiskers. So lame, but at least I didn’t go alone!

When my son came along I swore his Halloweens would be memorable. For his first Halloween I sewed him the most adorable pumpkin costume, but it turned out way too big. At the last minute I put him in white pajamas and stuck on a cute little puppy bib and called it done. He was darling.

At two he wore the pumpkin costume, and it was perfect! When he was three I sewed him a lion costume that was equally charming. I practically swooned when I saw him in it. Then, at four, he decided that he had to be Batman. A small part of me died inside, but he was happy.

At five he “spotted” a cute leopard costume, and I had to admit that I couldn’t have made it myself for the same price, so it was store bought again. Then there was a Power Ranger costume, and a Ninja, and who knows what else, until he decided to put together his own costumes.

One year it was Darth Mullett… a hillbilly version of the terrifying Darth Maul from one of the newer Star Wars movies that I don’t like. He donned red and black face paint and a wig, and he looked pretty bizarro. He was happy. Another year he was a creepy pumpkin patch guy. He made a pumpkin mask, then borrowed a fall leaf garland that he wrapped around himself. He looked pretty awesome.

My son is too old to trick or treat now, and Halloween has lost some of its magic for him, but I still love it. I enjoy being outside and watching the neighborhood come to life. I love to see the little ones experience it for the first time, and to joke around with the teenagers who are trying to stuff their pillowcases with free candy and hang on to their childhoods.

I think back to all those freezing cold Halloween nights from my childhood, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

October 26, 2014
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Why I Decorate For Holidays

Have you been inside a store lately? Someone thinks it’s Christmas already. It’s not. It’s still October. I’m not ready for Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. Or, frankly, even Halloween. In fact, I went out looking for some cool yard decorations for Halloween yesterday, but apparently you’re supposed to do that further in advance of the holiday than one week. Who knew? I did pick up a few small Thanksgiving decorations, on clearance, no less.

I’m slowly trying to rebuild my Halloween and Thanksgiving decoration stock, as I foolishly allowed most of it to be given away by my ex. It wasn’t his fault. I moved out of the house and left behind lots of things to donate. Somehow the box that contained some really wonderful decorations (including some handmade items and some treasures that my son made in his early years) ended up in that group. I’ve been mourning its loss for three years now.

The stacking jack-o-latern boxes, the ceramic haunted house candle holder, the cross-stitched ghosties, the tole painted pumpkins, the elegant ceramic pumpkins that used to grace my Thanksgiving table… all gone. So are the mini-pumpkin lights and the larger jack-o-lanterns stake lights for the yard. It still makes me sad to think about it.

As we speak, my house has a hand-made fabric wreath on the front door and a small wooden sign with a jack-o-lantern. There is a doormat in orange with a jack-o-lantern face on it, and a plug in jack-o-lantern that isn’t plugged in, because we need an extension cord. How is anyone going to know that we’re a house to trick-or-treat at? I know, I know… turn on the porch light and they will come. But it’s our first year in our new neighborhood, and I want to make a good impression. There should be some sign on Halloween on the premises!

When I was a kid we had a large plastic jack-o-lantern. We would place a small lamp inside of it and put it in the front window. It looked awesome! Then we would carve a pumpkin or two and stick those out on the porch, with candles in them, of course. I loved how it looked. It was the only time our house was ever really decorated for a holiday, at least from the outside.

My parents were immigrants, and my family is Jewish. We never did Christmas lights. In fact, it made my mom a little uncomfortable when my dad would bring home a wreath for the front door, which he did a couple of times during my growing up years. Our house basically always looked the same, inside and out.

Back in those days people didn’t go quite as crazy with the decorations as they do now, of course, but there were lots of Christmas lights in our neighborhood. They looked especially beautiful in the snow. I loved visiting my friends during the holiday season and seeing their Christmas trees and other decorations. I was always fascinated and enchanted by all the things that people would do to make their homes different and special during holidays, whether it was embroidered hand towels or special placemats or garland along a bannister. I always wished that we could do that at our house, but it was never going to happen.

We did have out our menorahs at Chanukah time, and one year my dad built a huge gingerbread house. We also dragged home a small evergreen and put it in a bucket in basement one year, much to my mother’s horror. Then there was the year that my dad and I built a “tree” out of dowels. I’m not sure if that was cool and creative or just plain pathetic. Anyway, our holiday decor was extremely limited.

I vowed that when I had a home of my own I would decorate it for the holidays, and I did. I still do. I don’t fill it to the gills with junk, I try to use pieces that make me happy individually, and that collectively create a festive feeling. That’s why replacing items is so difficult. The missing items were collected over years, and each had its own story. You can’t just load up at Target and call it done. Well, I can’t.

So now I’m back to clearing out clutter so I can enjoy my holiday decorations, such as they are, and I’m planning a trip to the hardware store for that extension cord. Who knows what I might pick up along the way? Maybe something spooky.