Prairie Eydie Decutters December in January

These two women have no idea that Prairie Grlz exist.

I have friended Anne Lamott on Facebook.  Today Anne's status said she is giving half of her stuff away as a gift to herself.  WOW!  That is what I have been doing since December 26th.(You can also give a gift to yourself by friending Anne on Facebook.  Her status reports are just as funny & insightful as her books.)     

Yum-yum calories. 

Let me backtrack.  This December I didn't send out Christmas cards which is my favorite thing to do.  I also didn't invite friends or family over (Prairie Sherry and I exchanged our gifts at Mickey's Tavern over a plate of sexy fries and glasses of Hoppalicious.  I did invite my family over, but then panicked and retracted the invitation when I realized I was losing my mind.) or make that yummy artichoke dip with all that disgusting mayo in.   You may wonder why I was discarding these priceless traditions like White Elephant gifts.

Prairie Friends, I was too busy decorating my house to do anything but decorate.  After I was done decorating, I immediately turned around and put away the decorations. 

It turns out my children didn't even notice the holiday cheer I DUMPED about the house.  For example, I landscaped the top of my kitchen cabinets with a sprawling Dickens Village that lit up.  I even inserted tufts of cotton snow between the houses.  Most nights no one thought to plug in the houses.  Or worse, sometimes the houses were still lit when I made my morning coffee.  That made me stress about my carbon footprint, which is already huge since I have three kids. 



"Take us to Goodwill..."  (NOTE:  This is not actually Prairie Eydie's snowman collection) 

No one noticed the delightful snowman scene I created on  top of the game cabinet (formerly known as the china hutch).  I spent hours propping snow figures up on books and arranging rustic trees around them.  Apparently, I also stopped noticing the snowmen because two days after I was "done" putting away Christmas decorations, I realized creepy snowmen were still leering down from the cabinet, like a booger you walked around with all day and didn't notice until you took your make up off. 

Let it be known that I now strongly dislike holiday decorating.  I hate putting away Rudolph bobble heads and detangling beaded garland.  (It got too tangled this year, so I just threw it out.  Yeah, yeah.  Carbon footprint.)  Don't get me started on twinkle lights or mangy poinsettias. 

I have been making some changes so I can be clothed in my right mind next December.  Any decorations I didn't use this year went straight to Goodwill.  Smell you later.  I also ditched decorations that made me uncomfortable - like the Blitzen dessert plate.  Blitzen was sprawled on the ice with Xs where his eyes should be.  Why was I serving my children apple slices on that plate?  The Vixen plate left too.  It creeped me out that Vixen resembled a bloated Mariah Carey.  Perfectionist me thought I needed a dessert plate for each and every of Santa's reindeer.  Not true.  Who can ever name all the reindeer anyway.  Right?  Well, besides Prairie Sherry.

Next year, all I am doing is getting a large tree (Would you stop with the carbon footprint judgments?) and hanging up stockings.  That is where my kids find joy. I will find joy eating hot artichoke dip with my family and friends.  Oh!  And actually having time to watch Rudolph.  (Prairie Sherry has promised to make me reread this post next December if I forget and start to drag out the crowd of Christmas Barbies. )

aka Prairie Eydie

Prairie Eydie