31 Days of Pink Christmas: Part 1 of 2

If you read my posts often, you know that I love to decorate. Christmastime is an especially important season for me, as I pull carefully stowed decorations from their slumber, buried in boxes of treasure. I love collecting Christmas decorations, a pastime shared by most members of my family. Some might acuse me of being non-traditional, because I never decorate the same way twice. However, the last time I used pink in my decor was many years ago, and at that time, it was paired with turquoise. I will probably do that again at some point in the future, but for this year, I decided on PINK. So back on January 1 of 2023, I started thinking about what I wanted my spaces to look like, but the personal magic of my decor is what lies underneath for me.

Most of my furniture had a life before it found me, most notably Grandma Verda's chest of drawers that Pink Day 1 sits atop, or Grandma Lois's Duncan Phyfe table, home to Pink Day 3's paper hotel. The baby grand piano, built in 1939 and rescued from a southern church...these items form the foundation for my family room and related areas, and bring me great joy. The tattered lace cloth inherited from my Grandma Verda after she passed, the little pink deer found with my Mom during an Atlanta trip in 2017. The angels plucked from a special Christmas store in Estes Park, a little girl figurine from Elizabeth's Embellishments. A glittered paper house from Tiggy-Winkles in Riverside, a sparkly tree from Paper Doll in downtown Boulder. Some of our favorite gift shops have disappeared over the years, as they struggle to make it against big box competitors. But the charm of a small gift shop cannot be matched, especially during the holiday season.

As I pull each item from tissue paper, my senses are flooded with memories...the day, the place, and mostly, the people I was with when I became connected with that item. Someone might have said, "This is so YOU, Steph!" We take delight in finding items that we know our other family members will love. Growing up with three sisters and an artistically talented brother, making homelife beautiful is a trait we all carry. Sometimes the gift tag is also preserved, wrapped up in the tissue paper, and I am reminded again of the familiar loop of my Mom's beautiful script, the left-handed slant of my Dad's from a bygone era when penmanship was an art to be carefully practiced. Nothing can evoke them quite like their handwriting, as they are both singularly unique and beautiful.

To accompany this year's 31 Days of Pink Christmas, I decided take a photo every day of some large or small aspect of my pink decorations, from the front yard to the kitchen, family room, living room, cottage, and even the path in the woods on my property. In this first post, I share the first 15 days.

Days 1-3: Tis the Season to Sparkle!