In another lifetime, I was a bride-to-be, being fêted by a series of showers by generous hosts. These were thrown by bridesmaids, television newsroom colleagues, relatives and mostly, friends of my parents. As our wedding date fell very near to Christmas, one such hostess, brilliant and prescient she was, concluded what every bride really needs is Christmas decorations.
We didn’t have a house in those early years and when we did, not much else. One playdate mom was bold. Where’s all your furniture? Did you just move in? I told her to come back in December at Christmas time.
I tell this frequently to guests (the place is full of them this month), peering with varied expressions at the tchotchke, clunking up windowsills, moving in to otherwise sensible spaces.
Design magazines love minimalism. They’re sending their house doctors in to treat me.
Go ahead and lock me up in a Prison of Sentimental Fools. I’m defiant.
In my head, I’m an archivist, cataloguing the largesse of that wonderful friend of Mom’s, all that generation of good neighbours and volunteers who believed being charitable was just the way to be.
We northern countries have to find light somehow. Mine comes via merry figures at the windowsill.
For bigger and better displays, you’d want to go here. See more New York City holiday windows.
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