The Thanksgiving Day table had just been cleared, and already the talk about decorating for the holidays had started. The sighs of exasperation were already forming a melody, just thinking about retrieving all of the lights, and ornaments, and for the unfortunate lot, the additional outdoor lawn ornaments.

Call me silly…I get excited looking in every window, and at every lawn that has been lit up, seemingly, just for me! But do I want to do it? Heck, no!

This year, I came to the conclusion that Small was in. Could it be possible to only decorate with half of what I owned? I was starting to really get excited at the prospect of decorating with less. The wheels started turning, and I was off…..

The nearest home improvement center yielded the first ‘small’ treasure…a 4ft. tall Christmas tree already adorned with lights. With one sweeping motion, the tree was out of the box and ready to be trimmed.

I was beside myself with joy, knowing that at least 30 boxes of ornaments would not be making an appearance this year! But could I do it? Could I manage to only use 100 or so ornaments? It was not easy. My son’s (he’s 19) twenty five ornaments, recounting each Christmas didn’t make the cut. Neither did the sports collection, the Norman Rockwell collectibles or the talking star trek space ship. Ditto the snow babies, beanie babies, and Aunt Martha’s handmade dough ornaments. No, these stayed in their boxes. I opted for small, and simple. But, the ornaments kept calling to me, to be let out of their boxes to take their rightful place(s) on the tree.

What about my selection of hand painted, fiber optic, blinking in 12 different directions angel tree toppers?? No, they weren’t selected either. A simple gold star…that made the cut.

The collection of nutcrackers, now that was hard. I selected only 3. One made it to the tree display; the other two I kept, in case of nutcracker withdrawal.

And tree skirts…I will admit to owning 5, after all, I like to change the ‘theme’ every year. After looking them over, a sniffling a bit, four went back in the box, and the winner, a traditional red and white was placed on the side table, where the new tree would go.

All right, one angel made it on to the table as well.

I stepped back and thoughtfully looked at what I had just done. Would I miss the real, live 7 foot fir that I trudged out every year to get, tie to my car, bring home, set up and water every day? Not this year!

My son, having arrived home from seeing friends, looked at the tree and said, ‘Cool, you put the tree up…looks nice!’ Yep, going small is BIG news!

Check out my tree below..