I finally accepted the fact that Christmas is on it's way after Thanksgiving passed, and on the last day of November I was even OK when my suitemate started humming a Christmas carol while surfing the internet. I still wasn't excited for Christmas, though. Most of my fellow residents on the fourth floor of the international students' dormitory had quite a bit more Christmas enthusiasm than me; miniature wreaths and the like started appearing on the doors to the other rooms, but the door to the room Nathalie and I share remained entirely undecorated.
Last Sunday was when I finally became excited and happy about Christmas. Our snowfall had been absolutely pitiful before then, but as I walked to the grocery store, big snowflakes were falling in ever-increasing numbers. For the first time, it felt like it should be Christmas.
At first the snowflakes melted and only wet the ground and the buildings, but that made the city look beautiful and fresh.
Some snow remained from a few days before, and the flakes falling from the sky added themselves to what was already there.
I felt like Saint Petersburg was suddenly more colorful and vibrant. The paint on the buildings looked brighter and fresher after being wet by the snow, especially against the pale gray sky.
The snow had really begun to accumulate after I had finished my shopping and was heading home, loaded down with several bags containing groceries and the Christmas decorations that I'd just been inspired to buy by the falling snow.
Now that I was in the mood for Christmas, I had decided that our room couldn't be the only one on the floor without any Christmas decorations. When I got home, I made myself a cup of hot tea and then proceeded to cause an explosion of Christmas in my room that ended up leaking out into the central room of the suite.
The paper flowers that have been on my wall for the past three months were replaced by sparkly snowflakes.
I hung a snowflake from our lamp, too. This proved to be quite challenging because the ceilings are so high that the lamp is not easily accessible to someone my height, despite the long cord that it is hanging from. With the help of my bed and armchair, I managed, though.
I used a green garland and some Christmas ornaments to decorate our door.
In the central room of the suite, where we store shoes and coats and whatnot, there is a little cupboard sort of thing that is made specifically for neatly organizing your footwear. Ours contains lots of shoes, as it should, but, until Sunday, it also had a shiny pink garland in it. The garland had been there at least since I first saw it in the cupboard on September second, and I'll admit that it has sort of been driving me crazy. I generally don't find things that are obnoxiously pink and shiny to be particularly attractive, but I decided that this garland might look all right with some silver ornaments hung from it. At the very least, using it for decoration would get it out of the shoe cupboard. And our bathroom door needed to be more festive, too!
While I was shopping for Christmas decorations, I became a little sad that I wouldn't have a Christmas tree this year. I'll get home long after the natural tree my family will have for Christmas would have turned into a serious fire hazard, so I won't even have an after-Christmas tree when I get there. I decided to fix my lack of a Christmas tree by buying myself the tiniest fake tree I could find. I put it on my dresser and used some bizarrely- and dysfunctionally-placed hooks on my wall to hang another garland to make myself a little Christmas corner.
I have a tree and some decorations, and there is some real snow outside. Now it can be Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment