Greenery, Garland, Swags and/or a Partridge in a Pear Tree

For the past few years, I've headed home to my parents' house the weekend of Thanksgiving to help decorate for Christmas.

Depending upon whether they're actually going to be in South Dakota for the Holidays, there is either more or less decorating to be done, since more gets done if my sisters and their kids are going to be in the house.

I'm not entirely sure why it is that I learned early on how to hang greenery on the stairway banister. I'm guessing it's because - as the youngest - I was the easiest kid for my mom to rope into helping. Then, as I got older, I was home more than my sisters. And, having moved back to Minneapolis about 10 years ago, coming home for Thanksgiving made it very easy to help out.

So, long story short-ish, I've gotten good at putting up the stairway garland. Today, in fact, I think it only took me about 20 minutes, and it looks like this:

Some years it has red bows on it, some years it has gold beads - depending what Mom has on hand.
(NOTE: That's not a filter, that's just low light and my computer's camera.)

Everyone has a trigger that makes him/her think of Christmas. Baking a ton of cookies is one of mine. Listening to Christmas CDs as soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over is great for me. But there is something about the greens going up on the stairway that makes me want to fa-la-la-la-la all the way to December 25th.