Keeping Christmas Spirit Year-Round – How you ask?
We here at The Retro Christmas Card Company are pros at getting the holiday spirit pumping even though it may be 80 plus degrees outside. We fully expect a warm tropical Christmas this season. Since we are located in Florida, it is not unusual to have Christmas dinner in shorts, followed up by a walk on the beach. While this sounds just like paradise to some, I personally had a tough time of it at first as a child moving from a clime with white Christmas’, and not the sandy kind. Over the years I have learned to adapt and embrace all of the signs of the season without putting chains on my tires. We have also mastered getting in the holiday spirit in May, June and July, while we are conceptualizing our cards for the coming season on the back porch with pina coladas in hand. I’ll let you in on a few secrets of getting that old-time Christmas Spirit flowing all year-long.
First off – Fill the house with wonderful fragrances. Bake some Snickerdoodles, loaded with cinnamon. This cookie is a treat Christmastime or not and it scents the house beautifully. OH and take a batch next door. If you cannot muster the time to bake, just purchase a scented candle, with a cinnamon and apple base. It will be the perfect year-round, scent, just enough to conjure up holiday spirit but not as overwhelming as a pine scent. We place ours on a candle warmer that is plugged into a switched outlet, so the scent is wafting through the house every time we turn on the lights.
A visual reminder of the season. We have a rule that all holiday dec is out of sight by the first day of the new year. However, we make a habit of keeping around vintage toys tucked into bookshelves. It reminds us of
that childhood Christmas morning thrill of finding a special something under the tree and knowing that Santa got it right. I have also tucked away into my curio cabinet a crystal bowl filled with a few very special shiny bright antique ornaments. A tiny sparkling whatnot to say, keep the spirit in the everyday.
A surprise retro Christmas selection in our ipod playlist. We listen to jazz music almost exclusively and the swing era has some of the most fun-loving Christmas music ever recorded. I like to work in a few holiday tunes – even in July. It give me goosebumps to hear Bing Crosby sing “Let It Snow” – no matter the time of year. Besides, the looks we get from friends around the cookout is priceless.
Have you ever noticed how everyone seems to smile a bit easier, and is a bit more jolly at the holiday season? Never underestimate the power of a kind word or deed, year ’round. Don’t forget a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated. Smile, a lot. It costs nothing and is beyond price. Really – I know this sounds a bit Pollyanna, but I think if you will try an unexpected kind word in everyday places, the grocery, the post office, the dentist, you will find that you will be having more fun – wherever you are, whatever the time of year.
