Thanksgiving just passed, so my kids have started clamoring to go get our Christmas tree. We are all going to be home this Christmas so I figured I would indulge them and started digging around in the basement for our decorations.

Well, the cat had decided that these topiaries were much more interesting disassembled, and spent the past year knocking tiny pine cones off of them and pushing them off onto the floor. (Nothing a hot glue gun couldn’t fix.)

And my Christmas tree “skirt” was a tablecloth I had cut a hole in and held the cut edges down with iron-down binding tape, in 2005. It is square; it’s not even round. There are also some Styrofoam gold pears I got on clearance at Target in about 2008, which my late Jack Russell Terrier had decided were also interesting to bat around and then chew on. I usually rotate them so the chewed side is down, but sometimes they get jostled and my shame is revealed.

And there are some dehydrated pomanders who are starting to lose the tops of their cloves. They are technically tree ornaments, but the upside-down trick works to conceal those gold loops as well. But I have made real pomanders, and it is a long and sticky process, so they will remain in the rotation until I find replacements, because I like the look of them.

As it turns out, digging around in these boxes is revealing a lot of holes in my stash. And every year, there are little bits of things that fall off, and they get dumped in the box, but eventually, the item itself starts to look a little anemic.

How does a professional decorator come to such a pass?

Well, a lot of it goes into the category of cobbler’s kid not getting shoes. I am usually at the point of decorating my own house in mid-December, i.e., when the stores are starting to look picked clean, Christmas is on clearance, and they are already flirting with Valentine’s Day.

(I mean, have you ever tried to get Halloween decorations in the month of October? They are barely still holding onto Thanksgiving and Christmas is already haunting the doorstep in October. I took this photo in July.)

And there is a whole year between Christmases! So sometimes I forget what broke. Some of it has to do with the fact that some years I have “done” red, some years gold, some years silver, some years that colonial citrus and white thing…so I have a lot of stuff that doesn’t match, necessarily. I have decided I don’t care about that anymore.

So I sent my kids out with their au pair and they picked up a new skirt, some lovely glass trees (I’ll probably go out for more today), a fresh pair of topiaries, and a fresh batch of scented “vase filler,” which is fancy talk for dried whatnots you put in a bowl. I will probably go back out in the next few days and acquire some other things, too. Might as well. Once I get the rest of the boxes onto the main floor, I’m sure I’m going to find all kinds of stuff that is also 15 years old and needing to go to the great tchotchke round-up in the sky.

I did actually finish our new needlepoint ginger bread houses for our village, though my son put his in a copse of bottle-brush pine trees. I might have to switch it out for one of the crumbling craft-kit ones so people can see it. I spent a couple of years on those things.

And our drugstore nutcrackers (bought in 2018 while we waited for a strep test result at urgent care) are still looking fresh despite their turn as croquet obstacles over the intervening summers.

What are some of my other favorite quick-and-easy ways to liven up the house for Christmas? Switching out the candles on the dinner table or sideboard for green or red or metallic ones is an easy holiday pick-me-up. While you’re at it, get out all of your candlesticks and put them around the house.

These little artificial candle rings are great for chandeliers and sconces, and last for years. Just make sure the chandelier is off when you put them on or you could burn your fingers on the light bulbs.

You can always put the extra branches from the bottom of the tree (make room for presents!) around a tray, or among some white roses in a vase, or stuffed around the mantle, or in place of your dead annuals in the pots out front. It’s a good time to prune your shrubs anyway, and there is no reason to spare the feelings of the invasive English ivy poking its head through my fence and cluttering up the alley behind my house.

In fact, look at how they have perked up those offending old pomanders and pears! And I don’t even have to polish that tray now. Ha.

But there are some more old favorites that we’ll let live to fight through another year. I will likely not sit out on the porch numbing my fingers in the great annual garland making I have done in the past for the staircase. It feels like a cold winter is coming, and I don’t really want to go sit out there with wire cutters and pruning shears getting sap all over my jeans. It takes hours. And the ironing of the ivory satin ribbon that secured it to the banister lacks appeal this year.

As it turns out, I still have plastic boxwood garland I bought in 2007 that doesn’t really smell all that plastic-y once it’s been out of the box for a couple of days. And it lights up!

Anyway, this is me encouraging you to go poke around in your boxes before it’s too late. Figure out what needs to go and what might just need a little greenery and ribbon to make it shine. Look at all of this stuff I cut from my yard and the alley in about 10 minutes!

But after that assessment, hit some of those discount big box stores. There is a whole world of stuff out there that will become new old friends. And while you’re at it, pick up a bottle of fig vinegar. It’s lovely on a pork roast and a salad. We all need easy dinners in these last few weeks of the year.